Task Force HAMMER: Line of Fire
by Impurest Cheese
Summary: Task Force HAMMER are sent behind enemy lines as HAMMER and Asgard once again clash. This already difficult mission is made harder as an elite group of assassins target one of the team. Set between Fall of Midgard Chapter 9 and Asgard Offensive Epilouge.
1. Prolouge: First Class Delivery

**Abandoned Office Block, San Fransisco - 15:35PM (Five Days after the Svartálfaheimr Offensive)**

"Senator Leverich I don't think you understand," Tony told the man over the video conference, "Osborne is going to ruin this country; he already is in this witch hunt for that creature that levelled half of down-town."

"I understand son, this is the second civilian target that Carrion has hit in the last three days." the Senator explained, "While threats like that continue to overshadow the American People I have no choice but to postpone my opposition to Bill 299."

"Senator if that bill is passed more people will die and it will be sanctioned by good men such as yourself." Tony explained.

"Yes but the difference is that they are not innocent." Leverich replied, "I'm sorry Tony I can't help any further. I stuck my neck out on the block just by supporting you insurrection, I was lucky not to have it chopped off."

"Goodbye Senator." Tony said angrily pressing the cancel button. Walking to the window he stared at the multitude of work crews working to clear the wreckage left behind by the creature known to HAMMER as Carrion. Tony knew better he had been at the emergence point, it was only the actions of Cloak, Dagger and the Sexton that had sent it back into the Earth, but it seemed that it wasn't going to leave this world without a fight. Days after her initial banishment Carrion had surfaced in Quebec for an hour killing three hundred people before vanishing. Then yesterday she emerged in San Francisco and triggered a massive earthquake, the death toll was unknown but Tony knew it would be high. He and Pepper had been lucky, if it wasn't for Carrion they would both be rotting in the Negative Zone instead of hiding in the potential death trap.

"Tony." Pepper said arriving if on queue, "Did the Senator agree to oppose the Bill."

"No he's worried about Carrion just like the rest of them." Tony said bitterly.

"Can you blame them?" Pepper said, "Did you know Melissa was capable of this."

"We should stop calling this thing Melissa," Tony told her, "She wasn't the most angelic person, but she drew the line for years while others crossed it all too readily." From behind them the lift pinged announcing that it was coming up to them.

"Are we expecting anyone?" Tony asked.

"Nobody knows we're here." Pepper replied, "Let alone made an appointment to see us." The lift pinged and the doors crept open to reveal and armoured figure.

"Oh it's not us who needs an appointment." the figure said in a thick Russian accent, "It's you Stark who has an appointment to die." Stepping out of the lift Tony saw that the armor matched that of Titanium Man, even in his weakened state Tony knew that Pepper and he could take the Russian mercenary down if he was alone. Tony swore as four more figures emerged from the lift, Titanium Man wasn't alone he recognized them all. Titanium Man wouldn't be a problem but Titanium Man backed up by Venom, Bullseye, Chemistro and Yelena Belova would be a problem even when he was fully powered up and had a whole team of Avengers for back-up.

Almost instantly the villains fanned out creating a loose circle around Iron Man and Rescue. Titanium Man walked up to Stark and pushed him over, "Surrender and we make this quick." he offered.

"How dare you touch him." Pepper yelled firing her Repulsor Beams at Titanium Man the energy beams bouncing off the armor. Tony fired his own Repulsors at the armored figure and together they were able to force Titanium Man back only to be struck by a shower of pennies thrown by Bullseye, the improvised projectiles ricocheting off the armors surface. Quickly both Yelana and Venom moved in to face Pepper and Tony in close combat. While Yelana had chosen a fluid almost beautiful combat style Tony found himself on the end of ragged punches and clumsy piledrivers from Venom although he had to admit the strength and aggressiveness of his opponent made them effective. He had one chance and that was to unleash the Uni-Beam in his chest. As the destructive beam began to charge Venom slipped out of the way and Tony watched as Bullseye threw a razor tipped Ace of Clubs at the projector shorting it out. Frustrated Tony felt Venom slam against him knocking him to the floor as the Symbiote stabbed its tongue into his visor the powerful mashing beginning to cut through the armor.

Pepper was frustrated Yelana got in every kick or punch but she had failed to make contact. The Second Black Widow seemed to be like water, fluid and unable to catch, she was even dodging the frequent Repulsor blasts. Suddenly Titanium Man fired some kind of pulse causing her armor to seize up. Paralyzed Yelana walked up and began to pull her helmet off but was shocked by the armor's built in security.

"Black Widow, Venom don't bother." Chemistro said his voice sounding scratchy and metallic, "There are easier ways to get this armor off." he told them raising his Alchemy Gun aiming it at Pepper.

"No." Tony roared and pushed Venom off as Yelana and Bullseye opened fire with Glock Automatic Pistols the bullets denting the armor. Slamming into Chemistro, Tony saw a jet of acid spray up and melt a hole in the ceiling.

"Gentlemen, Ground Hawk 1 says it's thirty seconds to shake down." Yelana told the others as Titanium Man pulled Tony off of Chemistro. Reaching out Tony pulled off Chemistro's helmet to reveal not the dark face of Calvin Carr but a pale blond woman who stared at him with deep blue eyes.

"What's going on here." he asked. Suddenly the building started shaking and Titanium Man placed him on the floor. It took a second for Tony to realize that his armor had been ripped open and that Venom was pulling Pepper out of her armor as well.

"Get them into the hushed caskets." Bullseye ordered as Chemistro sprayed some kind of foam into the armor remnants. Yelana emerged from the adjoining room with two coffins with sets of air holes drilled in them. Venom placed Pepper in one and Titanium Man dropped Tony in the other as Chemistro sealed the lids.

"Ghost are the cameras ready." Yelana asked

"Ready and waiting to record, I've taken the liberty of whipping the part where Chemistro's helmet was pulled off" Ghost told them, "Okay Sims are in place your good to go."

"Detonate them." Bullseye commanded as Chemistro pushed the trigger, the two sets of armor vaporizing as the liquid explosive sprayed inside detonated.

"Time for our exit." Yelana commanded, "everyone up one level to the balcony. Ghost have you located Geode."

"She's on Baker Beach awaiting pick-up." Ghost explained as Titanium Man picked up the caskets and headed for the stair well.

"God these things are heavy, I never noticed how much Pepper and Tony weighed before." Titanium Man groaned his accent still sounding foreign.

"Stop complaining at least we have a ride waiting for us." Bullseye responded, "And Ghost please can you turn off the vocal masking program that accent is driving me nuts." Reaching the balcony Titanium Man threw the caskets into the Gunship waiting for them, the others looked around confused until he helped them in one by one, the cloaking system keeping the aircraft hidden for all. Getting in the gunship veered away as the building began to collapse covering any evidence of Tony Stark and Pepper Potts leaving the building alive.

"Falconer this is Merlin Lead," Yelana called as she eased past Ghost into the pilot seat, "HVIs secured awaiting coordinates for drop-off."

"Merlin Lead, pick up Ground Hawk and proceed to coordinates for hand over to the local authority. Contact me when your on returning back to the Aerie, Falconer out." Falconer commanded.

"So Liz how do you like being a blond?" Bullseye asked

"I feel like I dropped a few IQ points Nijo. Everybody get ready for drop off gear we're trying to leave no trail." Elizabeth commanded pulling a HYDRA pilot helmet over her head. Dropping out of the clouds to the beach Elizabeth noticed that there was only one person still there, the earthquake had obviously cleared everyone else off. "Ground Hawk One prepare for dust off" she said speaking into the tiny crystal mounted on the dash board.

"Roger Merlin Lead." Geode answered standing up revealing the new-age outfit she was wearing. Quickly she ran over to the gun-ship and entered staring at the crowd of HYDRA agents sitting in the troop bay. "If you can't beat them." she said her clothes changing to the green armor worn by HYDRA foot-soldiers."

"Merlin Lead all Hawks accounted for move on to phase two." one of the agents told the pilot his voice still tainted by a Russian accent. "Damm it Peregrine turn the program off." he asked.

"Sorry Merlin Three." Ghost sneered poking his head out of one of the locked down machine guns, "There that should do it."

"Thank you," he said before adding, "Damm it Ghost that's a French Accent it's more infuriating then the Russian."

"I have to have some fun." Ghost snickered, "Tate green seriously isn't you color." Tate stared at him, she had just finished applying the hair die, her once blonde locks now HYDRA green as she shifted uncomfortably in the green body stocking she wore.

"Why are we doing this?" she asked checking the bull whip wrapped around her like a belt.

"Because you and her are from the same genetic stock." Elizabeth explained, "Plus you spent fifteen years with HYDRA if any one can fool the buyers you can."

"Who are the buyers?" James asked, "Really do I look like I'm from Australia Ghost."

"Ghost turn his voice back to normal." Elizabeth ordered, "You'll find out, their security is already haling us for the access codes. Let's hope Falconer's Intel was right about this." she added. "Okay we're cleared to land, now everybody act all HYDRA like and Ghost stay out of sight."

Five minutes later the HYDRA Gunship touched down on the landing pad. Quickly James, Toxin, Geode and Nijo deployed forming an honor guard for Tate as she regally stalked out of the gunship dressed up almost identically to Viper.

"Hail Hydra." she said coldly to which the others replied in unison, "Hail Hydra."

"Let's get this over quick." the buyer said, "I don't want you on my island any longer then required."

"Be careful Mr. Summers." Tate purred, "A comment like that may cost you extra."

"You really think you can enforce that here?" Scott asked. Tate luaghed and clicked her fingers signaling James to bring out the caskets with Iron Man and Rescue still held inside.

"The money." Tate asked.

"First I want to make sure that the caskets don't contain any nasty surprises." Scott told Tate as another mutant emerged and scanned the casket. "Well Betsy anything?"

"Nothing apart from life support systems." Psylocke answered, "Still it's strange that I can't read their minds."

"The money Mr. Summers, your said it yourself you don't want us on this island any longer then you have to keep us here." Tate said. From the shadows Colossus stomped out holding a brief case, expertly Tate used her bull whip to ensnare the case handing it over to James.

"Scans says money's all here Madame." James replied.

"Good, All Hail Hydra." Tate announced as the other filed into the Gunship. As the doors closed Tate immediately threw up, "Never make me do that again." she said crying, "SHIELD tortured me for five years to remove the programming HYDRA brain-washed me with."

"You want to talk about it?" Ghost asked

"No, let's just go." she said.

"I still want to know why Victoria overode Osborne about killing Stark and Potts?" Ghost asked

"Who knows she's as crazy as he is at the momment." Elizabeth repplied, "Now quiet while I send the confermation that drop off is secure. Falconer this is Merlin Lead, HVIs delivered we are returning to Aerie." she broadcasted

"Good work all of you, take some R&R then get back to work, everyone is being tasked with hunting Carrion." Victoria Hand told her team over the radio, "Falconer out."

* * *

><p><strong>Unknown Time, Unknown Place<strong>

In the darkened abandoned warehouse the six figures watched the images of Task Force HAMMER taking down Iron Man and Rescue in the high rise as a seventh addressed them from a chair, robotic armor hiding their features.

"You all are familiar with the target." a seventh person asked in a robotic voice. The figures nodded, "Good, I expect you to terminate with extreme prejudice." the figure told the others, "Engage the others if you have to but by any means take down the target, succeed and you'll be rewarded, fail me and your place in my future world is forfeit. Do you understand?" it asked. The others nodded as the TV image froze showing all the members of the team, one of them had a target painted across their forehead marking them for assassination.

* * *

><p>The characters of Elizabeth MonroeTyto, Geode and Tate Williams/Chemistro IV are my own origonal creations and are not owned by Marvel Comics


	2. Unwelcome House Call

Ghost floated away from the sounds of gunfire as Nijo took out a wave of targets on the firing range. He needed a quiet place to think and the usually deserted room adjacent to the 'shooting gallery' no longer fit the requirements he set. Floating into the main living area he saw Geode and War Machine watching the news. He stopped and floated behind them, as antisocial as he was even he needed to catch up with the outside news. The main story was another Carrion attack, this time on Tacoma resulting in the deaths of over 100 people, there was lots of anger directed towards HAMMER and Osborne for not catching the super villain in her previous attacks. From the main entrance into the sewers the doors crept open and Toxin came bounding in with Elizabeth in hot pursuit obviously back from the symbiote's 'play time'.

"How was the walk?" James asked as the Symbiote pulled back it's covering revealing Pat's face.

"Not as bad as usual." Pat commented, "Toxin isn't as aggressive as usual."

"It's true," the Symbiote hissed, "We like playing on missions."

"Ain't that cute in a very creepy way," Geode commented, "Oh everyone quiet I want to here this."

"San Francisco is still recovering from the vicious aftershock that struck the city at 13:37 yesterday afternoon. In a strange coincidence the headquarters of the biotechnology research chain Faunatron was levelled in the same quake despite being out of the main area of effect. Seismologists are still baffled about why the Earthquake resistant structure was damaged, search and rescue teams have reported that twenty members of staff are missing and are presumed to be trapped under the rubble. As of yet no official HAMMER effort has been made to help the survivors although this morning an Initiative team arrived to assist in the rescue attempt and to aid local law enforcement in keeping the peace." the reporter stated.

"You couldn't help yourself could you?" Elizabeth asked, "You had to knock down a few buildings."

"I only directed the quake, it's not like I started it." Geode said innocently, "Besides only the Faunatron building and the target structure were affected I probably saved hundreds of lives." she added in the same innocent tones.

"Well I'm going to leave you guys to your TV watching." Elizabeth told them, "I'm going to get some rounds off in the firing range." She quickly stalked out of the room and disappeared her bad mood obvious to the rest of the team.

"Well she's crabby today." Ghost said.

"Ghost, how long have you been there?" Toxin asked as he jumped onto the sofa between Geode and War Machine.

"Not long, has anyone seen the missing section of the Daily Bugle?" he asked

"Why, you still looking for conspiracies?" James asked, "What is it this time?"

"I believe that somebody in HAMMER has been putting hidden messages in the Bugle to inform the others that Osborne is planning to release a chemical attack on the town of Pigeon Falls, Wisconsin. I'm just missing the last word that should be found in the recipe of the day column."

"Ghost, when will you see that the whole world isn't out to get us?" James told him.

"Where is the article?" Ghost asked.

"Tate took it, apparently some old lady called May Parker sent in her home-made cookie recipe and Tate alleviates her stress by baking." Geode told him, "She should be finished soon."

"But I need that recipe now?" Ghost whined, "The people of Pigeon Falls are in danger."

"Seriously Ghost stop whining, sit down and have a break." James suggested, "We'll even let you by socially antisocial if you want."

"I suppose the conspiracy can wait a little while." Ghost said slowly. As he sat down Tate emerged with a comedy apron over her clothes emblazoned with a cartoon Moonstone holding a moon pie while Tate herself carried a massive tray of cookies.

"Wow smells good." James complimented.

"I made them myself." Tate told him. Ghost gave her a look and she blushed before adding, "No blood involved honest."

"What about the recipe?" Ghost asked.

"The word is Oatmeal." Tate replied sarcastically.

"Finally it makes sense," Ghost replied, "That's how they plan to disperse it, now to find enough money for a call and the one phone box in the city not monitored by phone snipers."

"These cookies are brilliant Tate" James said chewing one of the biscuits, "Seriously Ghost nothing is going to go wrong. Relax have a cookie" he said offering Ghost a cookie. Ghost stared at the biscuit and eventually took it before breaking it in half, "If I didn't no any better these look like trace amounts of opium and nicotine, somebody is defiantly messing with the mix." Toxin and Geode immediately stopped eating their cookies and looked at Tate who shook her head. "There is nothing wrong with my cookies." she told him just as the doors opened revealing a silhouetted figure.

"Good evening gents, I'm here for the money." the figure sneered unleashing a swarm of bullets spraying them across the living room. Ghost went intangible and watched as Toxin and Geode created a shield of webbing and crystal to protect the others.

"Do you want to take that back about the whole world being out to get us?" Ghost asked James.

"Not now Ghost, go to the armoury and get me a weapon." James ordered, "And tell Elizabeth and Nijo that we have an intruder." Ghost disappeared and James watched as holes appeared in the protective shield that he and the others were crouched behind.

"Seriously does this guy ever run out of ammo?" Geode asked as shell cases could be heard rattling on the floor above the buzz of the attacker's machine gun. Suddenly the firing stopped and a sick clicking sound could be heard. Tate popped her head round the shield and quickly retracted it before asking, "How sturdy is this thing?"

"Should deal with most small arms fire." Geode replied, "Why?"

"Because we have to move." Tate said as the sound of an RPG whistled towards them shattering the crystal shield. The clicking sound could be heard again and the Task Force HAMMER members dashed into the kitchen as Machine Gun fire once again raked the living room.

"I have a plan," Geode told the others, "Toxin if you can get his weaponry I might be able to get close enough to crystallize him."

"It will have to do." James sighed, "Tate do you have your gauntlets?" he asked.

"Of course," Tate replied rolling up the sleeves of her sweater, "Do you want lots of light or smoke."

"Smoke, let's give Toxin all the cover he needs." James told her. Quickly Tate sprayed a second tray of cookies with her gauntlets. "They should release the Red Phosphorus on impact." she told them.

"Okay Toxin, Geode gets ready." James instructed over a third set of clicking sounds as he picked up two cookies, "Okay go." he told them as he threw the biscuits as they began to admit a thick red fog. Toxin leapt into action and fired two streams of webbing and pulled before jumping to the ceiling as a jet of flame erupted from the red cloud.

"A flamethrower, what is this guy a one man army." Geode asked as the attacker's silhouette emerged from the cloud his arm morphing once again.

"Bushwhacker, what are you doing here?" James asked the attacker as he vaulted over the work surface planting a kick into Bushwhacker's face.

"Getting paid," Bushwhacker sneered firing his weaponized hand, shotgun rounds ripping through the air as James jumped behind the table. Geode quickly tried the same move be only to be on the receiving end of a shotgun blast that sent her sprawling clutching her chest in pain. Toxin quickly webbed Bushwhacker's arm but the mutant assassin morphed his hand into a massive blade cutting himself free while firing a regular hand-gun with his other hand. Bursting from the door of the armoury Nijo and Elizabeth arrived armed with shotguns as Ghost threw an Assault Rifle to James, the weapon clattering to the floor because of the poor throw.

"Surrender Bushwhacker, you're outnumbered and out-gunned." Nijo told him. Bushwhacker sneered and leapt at Nijo smashing through the shot-gun rounds fired before stabbing the mercenary in the chest as Elizabeth grabbed him and threw him off as his arm mutated into a biological shotgun. James ran in and smashed Bushwhacker over the head with the rifle Ghost gave him as Toxin tackled him the two men holding the man's arm down on the floor as Geode crystallized the weapon and kicked the hand-gun away.

"What the hell is going on?" James asked Ghost.

"Probably here about the oatmeal." Ghost said

"Let's find out." Elizabeth told them as she put a power-inhibitor collar around Bushwhacker's neck, his arm turning back to normal.

Two hours later and Bushwhacker still hadn't talked and Elizabeth angrily stormed out of the makeshift Interrogation Room. Angrily she called HAMMER but from the sound of her answers they wouldn't be getting any help from their superiors anytime soon. Heading to the main Living Room she slumped down in a chair and took one of the cookies left on the tray on the table, plates covering the bullet holes. Tate watched as Elizabeth sighed, putting down the fifth tray of cookies she slipped off to the Interrogation Room, she had been afraid that Bushwhacker wouldn't break even to a skilled interrogator such as Elizabeth, or Natasha, depending on who she was on the given day.

Sitting down in the Interrogator's chair Tate remotely deactivated the arm shackle and instructed Bushwhacker to place his hands on the table.

"You going to see if you can break me?" he sneered.

"Yes but first I'm going to tell you something about myself." Tate announced, "As much as I hate to admit my true home was HYDRA Base 00297 hidden under Broxton, Oklahoma. I was created from stem cells of Viper and grown in batch 003 of the Ubermensch programme. I tortured my first victim when I was only 7 and scored my first kill when I was only 5, as you can see I'm completely different to Commander Monroe, she can't cross the line but I will happily skip over it if it means finding who ordered this hit."

Bushwhacker looked undeterred and simply snorted at her in mockery. Tate sighed, "This is how it works, I'm going to ask you who hired you and who the target is, if you cooperate you go to jail, if you don't we'll have some fun." she told him reaching into what HYDRA had called '0021s Tool Kit'. "First act of defiance and I'll freeze you right hand with Liquid Nitrogen. You won't be much of an assassin without that arm." she told him pulling out a stone ball before freezing it and then smashing it open with a rusty claw hammer. "After that I'll ask again, if once again you don't cooperate I'm going to spray this concentrated acid solution on you arms and face." Once again she pulled out another stone orb and dropped the acid on to the orb, the liquid eating through the stone. "I'll ask you again, this time the price of your silence will by fifteen minutes of exposure to a nerve agent of my own creation, it won't kill you but you'll be in so much pain that the acid will seem like relief," she told him putting a canister on the table. "You'll have one last chance and then you get this." she told him cutting herself with a knife allowing the thick brown syrup to drip into a syringe. "This is weaponized Ricin, fast acting it's boosted with green mamba venom and potassium chloride to create a quick acting poison. You'll hit the floor in five minutes, but those last five minutes won't be happy do you understand."

Bushwhacker didn't look nervous or even nod, he just looked stoic like a man unafraid to die, Tate knew she would have to mix things up a bit to get results. "Who sent you," she asked.

"Frosty the Snowman." Bushwhacker replied before laughing, "And I'm here to kill Elvis." he added.

"Fine, okay I'm fed up let's just head straight for the Ricin." Tate said lifting up the syringe and flicking the end. Bushwhackers sneer disappeared replaced by a look of fear, he obviously thought she wouldn't do anything she had told him she would.

"Wait I'll talk." he said, "Just don't kill me." he panted.

"Who hired you?" Tate asked

"I don't know they always wore a mask and disguised their voice." he said.

"Sorry not good enough." Tate told him plunging the syringe into his flesh.

"No I know who the target is and who the other players are, give me an antidote or something." he asked before screaming in pain.

"Talk." Tate instructed.

"You're the target." he said, "now give me the antidote please." Tate cut herself sloppily and watched the liquid drop onto the table. "Clumsy me." she told him "Now tell me the names of the others."

"Well there's me, a woman named Tonin, Gauntlet from the Inhumans, High Tech hunter by the name of Janissary, the Sandman and a bitch by the name of Red Back, that's it I swear."

"That's everything?" Tate asked

"There was something else, the computer the boss used had some-kind of logo. Now give me the antidote." he asked.

"That 'poison' is just an O Negative blood solution, you were never poisoned." Tate told him, "Now what about this logo or you get a dose of the real thing" she said menacingly

"It said Ni…" he stopped mid sentence and collapsed his head smashing into the table knocking the canister and stone fragments onto the floor. Behind Tate the door opened and Elizabeth stood framed in the opening with Victoria Hand standing nearby.

"Tate what the hell did you do?" Elizabeth gasped.

"I don't know." Tate replied, "But he told me nearly everything, somebody outside this complex besides Osborne knows we exist."


	3. An Enigma wrapped in a Mystery

Tate dropped the pen on the pad of paper and rubbed the cuts on her wrists, halfway through writing the 'list of enemies' she had ran out of ink and had to improvise, curved red letters gleaming against the white paper. Watching as her list of enemies dried Tate thought of Elizabeth's reaction to Bushwhacker's sudden collapse, Victoria had quickly taken him to a hospital and HAMMER forensic teams were doing toxicology tests to see what poisons, if any, were floating around in his blood stream. Meanwhile Elizabeth and Nijo were going through everyone's rooms to find the information leak. Gliding through the wall Ghost arrived and floated behind staring at her list.

"Baron Strucker, Viper and General Marani." he read, "You have a short list of enemies." he announced.

"Did they find the leak?" Tate asked.

"No, they searched my room first knocked over my white board but they found nothing. They didn't believe me when I said that no one on the team leaked information. None of us has any real interactions with the out-side world since we arrived besides stealing newspapers." Ghost informed her.

"Stealing is wrong Ghost." Tate chided him.

"Is that really the issue?" Ghost told her, "From what I overheard Victoria telling Elizabeth, Bushwhacker had high levels of nanites and the hormone Venlafaxine swimming around his blood stream. One knocks you out the other wipes your memory."

"And she' still treating me like I did something to him, besides scare the hell out of him." Tate replied

"I have a solution." Ghost offered, "HAMMER lies, there owned by Oz Corp what ever the truth is will be distorted out of context. So why don't we find the truth out first hand, we may not be able to access Bushwhacker but his PDA is being dropped off for analyzing in a private lab in Soho."

"Are you saying we should sneak out and steal the PDA?" Tate asked.

"Yes, I believe that the corporate giants are part of this some how?" Ghost replied as Tate went to the wardrobe and pulled out a black hoodie. "Let's go and see who wants to kill me." she said pushing the hood over her hair.

Elizabeth opened the door to the communication centre and sat down in the chair before pressing the accept call button. Almost instantly Victoria's face appeared on screen her hair ruffled and her suit wrinkled.

"You look awful." Elizabeth told her.

"You try keeping the Media, NYPD and Osborne at bay at the same time. It looks like Tate is in the clear for this particular incident; the Venlafaxine had a nano signature carved onto the Nitrogen molecule. The signature consists of a Serotonin molecule quartered with an S and T." Victoria told her.

"Any matches in the database?" Elizabeth asked.

"No matches, I searched for hours but then I remembered talking to the Taskmaster about a criminal who broke into the Initiative and started using a bio-chemical weapon against the trainees." Victoria replied, "The person was a former black op named Bile."

"I remember meeting Bile once." Elizabeth answered, "She was a nasty piece of work, always looking for a more painful way to kill."

"Sounds charming." Victoria answered, "From what I know Bile is currently lounging in the Negative Zone."

"Sounds like we need to pay a visit, I'll grab Tate and get the Gunship in the air within twenty minutes and meet you at the gate in Rykers." Elizabeth stated.

"No, take Nijo and head to Rykers by foot, Osborne has ordered me to come down and oversee anything that goes on in the team personally, he's been talking about compulsory terminations of contract recently, I would hate for him to target our unit." Victoria told Elizabeth.

"Since when did you worry about us?" Elizabeth asked.

"When my neck is on the chopping block," Victoria snapped, "Get Nijo and talk to Bile, I want to know who is behind this as soon as possible. Hand out." Elizabeth sighed Victoria and Osborne were certainly acting weird but maybe it was just stress. Flicking off the screen activation she headed out into the main living room where Geode was filling in bullet holes with sand which hardened into concrete.

"Charlotte; Nijo and I are leaving to chase up a lead but Victoria will be back later. Until then keep Tate safe and don't let any her out of the complex." Elizabeth instructed.

"Sure thing boss." Geode said as she moved off to another hole.

Tate squirmed uncomfortably in the chair she was sitting in "When you said we were stealing the PDA I had something else in mind."

"What?" Ghost asked as he quickly typed into the computer a series of encryption codes.

"Actually sneaking out and stealing the device, not sitting around in your room, which by the way needs a good spray of air-freshener, this place absolutely reeks."

"Air Fresheners spread an air-born form of Lasa Fever implanted by the pharmaceutical companies." Ghost told her, "Everyone knows that."

"Right." Tate said nervously, "Cool Board." she said looking at Ghost's board of conspiracies.

"Don't touch it." Ghost replied, "Look but don't touch everything has its place."

"Wow this is crazy; Captain America is actually a covert Nazi agent, Songbird has an evil identical twin, famous cyber terrorist Ghost gets a cameo in fanon about Osborne's Dark Avengers: The Deadpool Invasion. Is this all real?" Tate asked

"Real and very dangerous," Ghost whispered, "now come and have a look at this." Tate slid over to look at the computer system, "The PDA has one file on it, a connection to a website . Bug sweep says the site is clean but just to be sure I'm boosting the systems virus protection."

"Well what are we waiting for?" Tate told him, "Click it." Ghost clicked the link and the website popped up with a gothic looking home page.

"What was Bushwhacker doing here?" Tate asked, "He was a priest surely he wouldn't believe in this?"

"He had a deck favourited; deck 2293201891-252018125518." Ghost said accessing the page.

"They must have a lot of followers if they have decks assigned to that kind of number." Tate mused.

"Oh," Ghost whispered, "Look at this."

"A card has been selected; The Temperance." Tate read, "Click to reveal chosen custom pattern." Ghost clicked the button and the card flipped revealing a blonde woman with red wings armed with gauntlet mounted wrist sprayers and dressed in the uniform of the original Chemistro.

"That's me." Tate told Ghost. "This is how they ordered the hit. Can you trace who placed this set of cards on the web?"

"Of course." Ghost said smirking, "Just flick the tracker on and we get the name. Our assassin master is Dr. J. Doe operating from an untraceable email account."

"That doesn't help Ghost." Tate shrieked. "It still doesn't tell me who is trying to have me killed."

Nijo and Elizabeth stepped into the Negative Zone portal and were greeted by the warden.

"I'm sorry Commander but we can't help you." he told Elizabeth.

"What you said that Bile was here awaiting trial." Elizabeth said.

"Yes well Ms. Tonin was transferred to the Raft a week ago, I even brought the transfer papers." the Warden stammered.

"Did Tonin make it to the Raft?" Nijo asked.

"Yes we were given confirmation of the prisoner's arrival. We don't want a repeat of that HYDRA ambush that ended in the deaths of Mr. Rhodes, Ms. Byron and the Ghost." the Warden said puffing his chest out.

"Wouldn't want that would we." Nijo said to Elizabeth, "You mentioned prisoners, who was she being transferred with?"

"Ms. Tonin was transferred with Mr. Marko AKA Sandman and Gauntlet from the Inhumans." the Warden told them, "And yes they arrived safely as well."

"That accounts for four of the five assassins Tate told me were hired to kill her." Elizabeth confirmed, "Can I see the transfer sheet?" The warden coughed and handed Elizabeth the sheet, at the bottom was a signature consisting of a single letter written in green ink. "What letter is this?" Elizabeth asked, "It doesn't look like a character from the English alphabet."

"Let me see." Nijo asked, handing him the paper Elizabeth watched as he scanned the page and growled, "It's the Egyptian Hieroglyph symbol for Kheper, the celestial scarab. Can we keep this?"

"Not really." the Warden stammered

"I'm not asking bub." Nijo told him, "We have to leave." he told Elizabeth. Suddenly all the lights went down and the portal flickered before disappearing leaving them trapped.

"Not again." the warden moaned, "this is the second time today we've lost transport power. Thank god the prision cells run on a different system or we would be overrun by now, lot's of angry people imprisoned in here."

"Great, just great." Nijo growled.

"What is it?" Elizabeth asked.

"Kheper written in green ink, what does that tell you." Nijo said angrily.

"It tells me that the person who wants Tate dead could be the Emerald Scarab." Elizabeth replied, "And if that's the case then none of us are safe."

Tate watched as Ghost fiddled around with the computer trying to find out who Dr. J. Doe was. Occasionally she looked at the board becoming engrossed in the crazy links and colourful comments that Ghost had added. It was one of these articles, about Osborne being possessed by Loki, that almost made her miss the Tarot Card changing.

"Ghost look." she told him, "The Temperance is greyed out and there's a message. New Target - The Hierophant."

"A second target?" Ghost said, "Or another user, this must be some kind of interactive target selector."

James strolled into the comms. room and saw a call waiting, lazily flicking the switch he saw Victoria running through the streets panting.

"Is Elizabeth there?" she asked.

"No she's at Rykers, we can't reach her at the moment." James said, "Are you okay?"

"No there after me." Victoria panted, "At least twenty of them armed with rifles, shotguns and machine pistols."

"Where are you?" James asked.

"I don't know, please help me." she asked as she turned and fired several shots back down the street.

"You left your pen here right?" James asked as Victoria began to run again.

"Yes why is that important?"

"Toxin can use it to track you, just keep running we're coming for you." James told her.

"Thank you." she said as James caught a glimpse of an armoured figure joining the hunt. Whoever these guys were, they weren't simple purse snatchers, they were pursuing Victoria with real malicious intent. Leaving the Comms. room he found Toxin and Geode in the firing range getting some unorthodox target practice in.

"Toxin we've got a new game." James told him, "We have to find the owner of this pen, her life is in danger." he told the Symbiote handing it the item in question. "Geode I need you to find Ghost and get Tate to the panic room just in case. When they get out of the Negative Zone tell Elizabeth and Nijo to contact us."

"Got it, I'll find them now and get her secured." Geode replied as Toxin sprinted off to the main exit, the doors still buckled from Bushwhacker's explosive entrance.

Tate watched as Ghost pressed the reveal chosen custom pattern button revealing an armoured Hierophant, the grey metal reflecting against his dark skin.

"Oh my god." Tate whispered, "The next target is James Rhodes."


	4. Trials of the Janissary

Tate sprinted through the hall, the base had just entered lock-down so James must be still inside. He would be safe at least for a little while but time was not a luxury she could afford. So concentrated she was on finding James she almost missed Geode running the other way.

"Tate we need to get you to the safe-room." Geode told her.

"What reason would I need to be in the safe-room?" Tate asked

"I can name four; Sandman, Bile, Gauntlet and Janissary." Geode replied, "No arguing, until the others arrive back I have orders to keep you safe."

"But I'm not in danger. Ghost and I found out how the target is being selected."

"You can tell the others later for now we have to keep you from being killed."

"But I'm not the target anymore, James is." Tate told her.

"What?" Geode asked, "But that means, oh by the chains of Hades, he's walking into a trap."

"What do you mean?" Ghost asked sticking his head out of the wall.

"Victoria called in five minutes ago, some thugs tried to kidnap her, James and Toxin went to rescue her." Geode explained.

"We have to get out there." Tate told her, "Lockdown or not, we can't let them swing in blind."

"That's easier said then done." Ghost explained, "The Lockdown contains a rolling encryption featuring both HYDRA and HAMMER codes with some unknown programming on top of it as well. It would take a master hacker days to get through, I might be able to free up communications in an hour but by then it might be too late."

"What if we gave them a new target?" Tate asked, "If they find out James isn't worth the bother maybe they would leave to chase somebody else."

War Machine landed at the entrance to one of the Hood's rented warehouses and located Toxin sitting on the side, two thugs with guns bound and stuck to the wall.

"How many inside?" James asked.

"Five, two with shotguns, one with an SMG the others have bats. Victoria is bound and gagged she looks like she's taken a beating just for the hell of it; they haven't asked her anything yet." Toxin informed, "Do you have a plan?"

"Yeah I'm going to drop some smoke while you pull Victoria up and out of here. When she's out these guys won't be a problem." James explained, "Get inside I'm going to breach and smoke in twenty seconds." he added. Toxin nodded and crawled through a broken window as James activated his armour's timer and primed the suits smoke grenade launchers. As the time ticked down he slammed the door, the aluminium structure crumpling before arriving in the warehouse, the stunned thugs turned and opened fire on him. James tried to fire back but his armour's weapons were jammed, running at full pelt he slammed the thugs as Toxin improvised binding the two bat yielders before cutting Victoria free.

"What happened with the smoke?" Toxin asked as Victoria picked up a dropped Micro Uzi.

"Weapon's systems jammed." James told him, "Victoria you said there were more then seven guys chasing you."

"There where, they set a trap for their boss." Victoria explained scanning the area, "Janissary set this trap for Tate."

"Well he's going to be disappointed." Toxin stated, "Let's get out of here while we can though."

"Oh but you're not leaving." a recording spluttered over the warehouse's intercom, "Especially when the rule's of the game has changed."

"Janissary come out and well make this quick." James proposed, "Your nothing but a third rate Fixer at best."

"More of a reason I have to hide." Janissary replied, "I have shut down your weapons and Repulsor systems Mr. Rhodes. The disgusting Symbiote and the accountant can leave if they chose, but if they stay they will be killed."

"Guys get out of here, even without the suit's weapons I can take down Janissary." James said picking up one of the thug's shotguns. Almost instantly the weapon exploded, the shells inside the gun peppering the armor.

"No weapons War Machine, my men carry weapons that will instantly explode if you touch them. A shotgun may not stop you but let me tell you that they are carrying heavier weapons then that." Janissary explained.

"We're not leaving War Machine." Toxin told him, "Your outnumbered and outgunned, this guy doesn't play fair."

"Thanks Toxin, how about you Victoria?" James asked, "You should leave."

"That basted hunted me through the streets, tied me up and blew up my BMW. He's not getting out of this alive." she threatened checking her Uzi's ammo level.

"Good, good." Janissary congratulated, "If you can escape the warehouse complex I will send you my coordinates. However I doubt you will escape." As the intercom clicked off one of the packing crates burst open and a TALON UGV burst out spraying the warehouse with machine gun fire. James went to return fire but then realized that his weapon systems were jammed, instead he watched as Victoria fired an entire clip into the drone causing the robot to spark and turn offline.

"Not much of a challenge." she commented retrieving the robots Light Machine Gun and swinging the ammo belt over her shoulder. More packing crates suddenly opened and more UGVs emerged armed with LMGs and grenade launchers. Toxin reacted fastest this time using his webbing to drag the others to the walkway above the floor. James watched as the vehicles shot each other before shutting down.

"Is that it Janissary?" James asked, "Because this is weak."

"This is the warm up, I knew that I wouldn't be able to take you on one on one but maybe this can. The entrances to the building you are in are now locked with a cyber lock. Even the door you broke so don't bother using that one, the code to escape is SCHIMITAR."

"What's the catch?" Toxin asked, "You wouldn't tell us that for free?"

"Very astute police officer. I have hijacked into the US Air Forces UAV's and have selected an MQ-9 Reaper armed with two GBU-12 Paveway bombs. ETA to the warehouse is forty seconds, guess where it's going to drop the munitions it's carrying."

"Crap." James yelled before jumping off the walkway landing on a sparking UGV. Heading to the door he charged before bouncing off the structure.

"The door you broke in was Aluminium, the others are all reinforced titanium. If you want to get out then you will have to enter the code, oh and now you only have twenty two seconds." Janissary told them his voice mocking them. James input the code on the door's keypad and watched as a new screen popped up saying the door locks were disarmed. Pushing the door open he emerged from the warehouse, Toxin hot on his heels as Victoria clung to the Symbiote's back. Overhead the Reaper dived dropping the bombs turning the warehouse into a massive crater.

"You escaped." Janissary said in a surprised voice, "That deserves a reward. I have left some codes that will give you my location in the security office terminal just for you. But there is a catch pick it up and you activate the bomb. What bomb I hear you ask? Well there is a shed up-ahead, you may even be able to see it from where you are, that contains a famous paper editor inside that's wired to blow. The bomb or the codes it's your choice Mr. Rhodes."

"It's no choice Janissary the Civilian takes precedent over finding you." Toxin answered.

"Good, then go and rescue him." Janissary ordered, "It should be quite easy." he mocked as War Machine led the others towards the shed. Suddenly spring loaded spears were triggered dragging strands of barbed wire across the path creating a thorny almost impenetrable barrier. The path blocked James suddenly heard a hissing sound come from his armour's life support system and threw off the helmet.

"Mr Rhodes I thought I would even things up. See while the others would have to be careful crossing my mine-field you could stroll across completely unharmed. Now you have to be careful each of the barbs contains a small dose of Amazonian Giant Centipede Venom. A single scratch won't kill you but ten, twenty could make you wish you were never born. Oh and I did mention this was a mine field right? I hope you learnt your military history because I took the liberty in recreating the first UGV; the Goliath Tracked Mine. You must feel flattered to be the first victims of these weapons in over sixty years." Janissary told them.

"Victoria get back, my armor will protect me and Toxin is immune to poisons but you're not. Something Janissary didn't count on was these." he ordered passing her his communication crystal, "Get to the security office and get ready to download the codes when I tell you too."

"Got it, good luck and for the love of god be careful." she told him.

"Will do, Janissary is going to be black and blue by the end of the night." James replied as she headed through the alley. Carefully James entered the thicket and saw the first mine trundling through the forest. Pointing at the UGV James watched as Toxin caught it with some webbing and swung it at the wall causing the explosives to detonate. Slowly they advanced through the forest destroying mines until they heard the PA crackle again.

"Mr Rhodes you certainty are careful so I'm giving you the benefit of the doubt. The cables are retracting so you can reach Triple J in time." Janissary told them, "Oh and Ms. Hand, yes I know you can here me, you like to see women take their clothes off, now it's your turn undress and put the outfit hung up in the closet on or I'll detonate the bomb."

"You can't be serious, this isn't time for you to get your jollies." James said angrily as he dodged a retracting cable.

"James it's a chemical warfare suit." Victoria told him.

"Ah yes your special crystals. So New Age but then that's Geode for you." Janissary commented, "Just save the Editor and then I'll tell you about the Nerve Gas I just happened to place in Grand Central Station or was it the Baxter Building, maybe it was Liberty Island. Hmm, maybe I said too much."

Toxin and James reached the shed and opened the door to see the familiar face of the Daily Bugle Editor James Jonah Jameson tied to a chair with a suicide vest attached to him.

"Spiderman and War Machine I should have know you 'heros' would be behind this." he growled.

"Do we actually have to save him?" Toxin joked as James pulled the suicide vest off the enraged Jonah Jameson and sprinted away from the shed. "Victoria download the information now."

"I'm a little busy at the moment." Victoria snapped, "Some of Janissary's men just stole the DSM he left behind to download the codes into."

"That's just great." James sighed, "Where are you?"

"The complex gates, I got one of them the other is jumping in a black Jeep Cherokee." the was a sudden burst of gun-fire and the sound of a car crashing, "Scratch that he's down just grabbing the DSM now."

"Ah women are so…what's the word, ah yes killable right now Ms. Hand holds the trigger for the chemical bomb, as soon as it's plugged in it will send the release command. But I'm fair to my targets, attached to old Jonah is a map marking the bomb site or should I say sites. See if you can disarm them all before Victoria plugs in. Oh and don't try and reach her as soon as she re-enters the security office it locks down, all communications both technological and mystical will be jammed." James turned Jonah around and found a map marked with bio-hazard signs dotted around the city. There were 21 sites to many for him and Toxin or even the CDC and Bomb Disposal Squad to reach before Victoria logged on.

"What must I do to stop the bombs?" James asked.

"Go to the gates put your hands on your head and say shoot me." Janissary ordered, "Your choice one life vs. many Hero."

Ghost typed as quickly as he could, accessing deck 2293201891-252018125518 was easy enough but actually getting into the master controls that allowed him to change targets was a lot harder. Whoever designed the system was a master in programming but Ghost was confident her was better.

"Ghost this is Geode." the base's speaker just crackled, "We just got a video link from Gauntlet it doesn't look good."

Ghost opened the sent link not even bothering to check for worms, Trojans or any other virus it may hold. The link opened and he saw Gauntlet's disgusting pitted face staring back his face supporting a self righteous smirk.

"This is the first time I've done a public accessed assassination. I hope you enjoy the show. Down there," he swung the rifle mounted camera towards an old warehouse complex where the figure of War Machine could be seen, "is the target. My partner has blackmailed him into surrender all we need is the magic word."

"Ghost hurry, James doesn't have much time left." Tate cried. Ghost hated James almost as much as Tony Stark, he would gladly see him dead, but something about Tate's voice spurred him on, typing even faster then usual Ghost got into the master control and changed the target from the Hierophant to the Hanged Man, a gaunt looking figure strung up by the neck wearing Ghost's face plate. Darting back to the video he saw Gauntlet look down at James from his high rise assassin perch. Over the speakers he heard James croak, "Kill Me."

"Here we go." Gauntlet stated cocking his rifle and lining up a shot on James unprotected head.

* * *

><p>The sadistic character of Janissary II is my own twisted orgional creation and is not owned by Marvel Comics<p> 


	5. The First Casulties

Tate and Geode watched as Gauntlet got into final position the camera mounted down the scope of his gun. Suddenly off-screen a device could be heard beeping and Gauntlet could be heard talking to someone.

"Yes, yes I understand." Gauntlet said, "Okay I understand." There was a click of a device being turned off before Gauntlet picked up the rifle camera and stared into the lens. "Looks like we have a new target." he stated, "So let's finish up here." he sneered putting the rifle back in position and realigning the shot.

"That basted is still going to pull the trigger." Tate spat, "James move your not the target anymore."

"Tate?" Victoria said on the other line, "Why isn't she in the panic room?"

"The assassin master isn't after just her, it's all of us, you need to get James out of there. He's just lined up to be assassinated by Gauntlet." Geode explained. "Where are you?" she asked.

"Just outside the security room, the DSM was a bust it only downloaded part of the information before shutting down." Victoria explained, "Toxin I need you to go and get James out of the line of fire." she told him.

"Yes Ms. Hand." Toxin sneered, "We didn't even get to play." he added.

"Just go, James's life is in danger." Victoria replied.

James Rhodes stood by the gates to the compound as sirens in the distance grew louder and louder. He'd said the words that Janissary had wanted but still he was waiting for the shot, he could see where the sniper was by the occasional glint of his weapon's scope in the light of the passing cars stalled in traffic underneath his perch. Then came the shot, James cringed and then realised that he had registered the bullet's noise, if that was the case then he was alive but he wasn't sure. Suddenly something black and sticky covered his face apart from his mouth and he felt his head sting as he fell backwards.

"What's going on?" he asked angrily his head throbbing.

"Cornel Rhodes are you okay?" Toxin asked, the words seemed faint and James felt his strength begin to waver.

"Toxin what happened?" he heard Victoria say her voice muffled by the hazmat suit she wore.

"He's been shot." Toxin replied the words barley audible, "My webbing slowed the bullet but it didn't stop it." As sirens began to drown out the voices, James couldn't here anymore but he could smell the mix of burnt webbing and leaking blood as he closed his eyes.

Elizabeth and Nijo arrived back at base the detour to the emergency hospital in Wisconsin, an unwelcome reminder of the end of their first mission where nobody had escaped unscathed.

"Is he going to be okay?" Toxin asked, it was clear from the charred welts on the Symbiote's arms that he had seriously beaten himself up about not being able to save James from Gauntlet's shot completely.

"He's in a coma, your webbing took the brunt of the impact but it's likely that James will have some memory loss and maybe even permanent brain damage." Elizabeth explained, "Victoria is trying to convince Osborne to help pay for James's medical bills and insurance but it looks like that Norman is playing the whole disposable asset thing. Plus he's got bigger problems at the moment I presume you saw the local news." she asked.

"If you are referring to the continuing attacks by Asgardian forces on San Francisco and Camp Hammond in conjunction with the terrorist attacks in the city. Not a good day to be the Director of HAMMER." Geode stated.

"And yet nobody looks to see if they are related." Ghost proposed, "Doesn't it seem a little too coincidental that the attacks happened within twenty minutes of each other. At least the attacks didn't affect too many people, from the footage I was able to scavenge from the security at the locations, it appears Janissary put nano containers of the gas in his men and then spread them across the city. Only they were affected but it was still enough to cause panic just like it was intended to"

"It gets weirder, we believe we have a lead on who our assassin master is." Nijo added, "This is the Kephi AKA The Emerald Scarab." he told the others as a hologram of the Avenger in question appeared as the briefing room projector stirred into life, "An Ancient Egyptian God trapped in the body of a mortal woman. She signed the transfer papers for Bile, Sandman and Gauntlet all of whom have us in their line of fire."

"It's unlikely that she's working alone if she is indeed the master of these assassins." Ghost stated, "While I was a member of Osborne's Thunderbolts I bugged Avenger's Tower. Kephi has trouble with technology and the selection process for targets is highly complex as well as being protected by some hard-core encryption."

"She could have got Janissary to rig that for her, the high tech nature of part of the selection process doesn't rule her out as a suspect." Elizabeth explained.

"There's something else." Tate told them, "In Gauntlet's footage he fired two shots, the first is intercepted by something before it can reach James, the second hits the mark but is stopped by Toxin's webbing. After that the feed went dead as Gauntlet legged it from the scene of the shooting. After some clever computer simulations from Ghost and just a little illegal hacking into local cameras and the recorders in James's armor you get this." she clicked the projector and a 3D image of the scene of the attempted assassination appeared.

"James is here." Ghost said pointing to a tiny War Machine standing by the gates into the complex. "And Gauntlet is here, from what we saw in the video by watching it frame by fame, the intercepting force comes from here on an adjacent roof to Gauntlet's assassin perch."

"The trouble is that area isn't covered in cameras, but then we had an idea," Tate announced, "there was a camera floating over the city at the time. From what we heard on the armour's recording and Toxin's and Victoria's statements, there was a UAV in the area that Janissary stole from the US Air Force. After hacking into Janissary's 'back door' Ghost was able to remotely download the footage and send the drone back to the nearest air base. When we added that footage we got our mystery shooter." A hologram appeared of the third shooter, an armoured figure their face covered in a gas mask.

"We split the image into three categories," Geode explained, "Armor, Weapon and the Logo on the chest plate. After running them through the International Arms and Armor databases we got a few matches. The armor is custom made but has a resemblance to the MACH 1 armor worn by Abner Jenkins in the first incarnation of the Thunderbolts. The weapon was found however, it's a Serbian M92 Black Arrow Anti Material Rifle, a very rare weapon over here, the actual gun itself hasn't been created yet, it's due to come off the assembly line in November this year. We found traces of temporal energy at the scene suggesting out shooter is from the past or the future, from what we know about the logo we would suggest the latter."

"Why, how can you know that?" Toxin asked.

"Because that logo is the Eagle flare found on Songbird's Uniform." Elizabeth explained, "And both Songbird's have been listed as Killed In Action. The real one died shortly after reeking havoc as Carrion, and the second, according to Scourge's report was killed by a Lindworm in the retrieval of evidence for the death of the first Songbird."

"I hate to agree with Ghost but this does seem like more then a coincidence." Nijo voiced, "I think that something larger is going on."

"So our next course of action is?" Geode asked, "We can't go up against the mad-one, even as a team up against her all by her lonesome we wouldn't stand a chance in capturing or even killing her." There was a beep and everyone looked at Tate who removed a mobile phone from her belt."

"Who knows the number to that phone?" Elizabeth asked her eyes narrowing.

"Nobody it's the back-up disposable for the call we made to Utopia on the last mission, it hasn't even been activated." Tate told her.

"Well somebody knows because they sent you a text." Elizabeth told her, "Answer it, Ghost get ready to track the messages."

Tate read the message, "Cygnus are you on the grid?"

"Who is this?" she typed back, three seconds later another text arrived with a single word, "Au."

"Au is listed as dead." Tate typed.

"I am." the reply told her, "How is the condition of WM."

"Stable," Tate replied, "How did you get this number."

"Not important, sending coordinates and dates to aid in investigation." Au answered. Behind Tate a computer beeped and displayed the coordinates for Paris before showing the image of a green scarab amulet with golden edging. Underneath the words Bargaining Chip were scrawled in hand written text. The image shrunk before a date appeared; 10:33PM, 22/08/11 while six mug shots were displayed underneath with a label connecting them claiming them to be the Insidious Six.

"What is this stuff?" Tate asked.

"Window and Opportunity, Kephi has information that will aid in investigation. Amulet is an ancient token bewitched by a Necromancer declaring his love for Kephi. She lost it when she was banished from France at the end of the Napoleonic War. Dates are an attack by group looking to steal brief case, Kephi will be separated and vulnerable to questioning." Au told them before adding, "From there you are on your own, beware Nike. Au out." the phone went silent, with no more messages coming from Au.

"Where did the call originate?" Elizabeth asked Ghost.

"Each call came from a different tine and place, the first originated in Santiago, Chilie at 22:09PM yesterday" Ghost said, "the second came from Manchester, England at 03:20AM tomorrow, a third came from Latveria, two weeks in the future at 15:18PM, the image of the Scarab came from Paris, France at 09:01 five days ago, the data about the heist came from Utopia of all places from the 22nd December 2012 at 08:01AM and the last message was sent from Cape Town at 14:04PM today."

"That fits with footage from the roof top, one minute the second shooter is their then he or she isn't." Geode stated, "Who or what is Au?" she asked Tate.

"Back in 2005, back when I was in SHIELD custody I was deployed along with a group of volunteers from the Raft to help the relief effort, a sort of community service." Tate explained, "Anyway it turned out a villain known as King Coral was planning to summon a monster known as Charybdis into this dimension to swallow the state of Louisiana. Jericho Drum found about the plan and lured the team I was with to him to help stop the summoning. Coral had a powerful witch Sarcen in his employ who could kill you just by saying your name. To counter this we had alternate code names to keep us safe. Mine was Cygnus, the Latin for swan, since my first name is Odette the main character from Swan Lake."

"So Au was?" Toxin asked.

"Gold, Melissa Gold, she was the group leader, the others were Gamma or the Radiation Man, Big Game or the Rhino, Crystal or Diamondback and Heartbeat or Cardiac. There was one other as well, a SHIELD supervisor by the name of Nike, we never got her real name." Tate informed them.

"Songbird warned you about Nike, could she have been Kephi?" Elizabeth asked, "Think hard this could be the break we're looking for."

"I don't think so, Nike was tough but if she was a goddess then it was news to me." Tate replied.

"Doesn't make her or Kephi innocent, she could be the technical brains behind the attempted assassinations." Ghost warned them, "I would suggest closing that data now, we have company." he said pointing at the security monitor which showed Norman Osborne, Victoria Hand, Hawkeye and Ms. Marvel accompanied with a HAMMER Commander entering the base. Quickly the team assembled in the main living quarters as their guests entered. Norman Osborne had a look of thunder on his face while Victoria looked terrified.

"I had to come down to this shit hole because of you actions tonight. Apart from Commander Monroe and Nijo none of you were authorized to leave this base yet two of you did leading to Cornel Rhodes being hospitalized." Osborne bellowed, "I had to explain how a dead man, an escaped prisoner was still alive and free in the company of a top HAMMER agent. And then I here that you triggered a city wide chemical terror attack in the process and blew up a fucking warehouse. Now somebody explain before I have all of you thrown into the Negative Zone just because I feel like it."

"It's not there fault." Tate answered her voice carrying more authority then the others had ever heard, "It was mine, previously we had a break in by an assassin that was trying to kill me, everyone was so focused on protecting me that they didn't realize that the target had been changed to James, he and Toxin went out to save Victoria not knowing the danger he was in."

"I see, Ms. Williams I want you out of my city in five hours and back to whatever wretched country you came from. As for the rest of you consider yourself lucky that I don't rip you apart with my bare hands." Osborne threatened before cackling manically.

"But sir we're already a man down we can't afford to loose anyone else." Victoria said timidly as Osborne cackled.

"Rhodes will make a full recovery?" Osborne asked

"Hopefully," Elizabeth informed him, "Toxin saved his life but he might have some amnesia." she added.

"Good, as for being a man down," Osborne stated, "I brought a replacement for Ms. Williams who should fit in very well, isn't that right Raven?" he asked the HAMMER Commander whose armor and clothes transformed into blue skin as long red hair framed her face, yellow eyes piercing whatever they saw.

"Oh I'm going to fit in just fine." Mystique answered as Hawkeye and Ms. Marvel cuffed Tate and dragged her out of the base.


	6. Darkest Before the Dawn

**Just some kind of vague warning about spoilers before you read this chapter**

Deadpool: - Impurest Cheese urges readers to read the prologue of the fanon Dark Avengers: The Asgard Offensive since the events in this chapter are the direct sequel to those depicted in the start of that Fanon. It's almost like he planed it that way, the cheeky basted. Plus when are you going to let me out of the Negative Zone. I demand answers now.

Impurest Cheese: - Enough Deadpool, Enjoy this chapter readers and don't forget to comment and query anything you see in this and any other story I write.

* * *

><p>Nijo waited patiently on the rooftop the experimental General Dynamics FIM108 'Cluster Fly' mounted on his shoulder. On his arm the glowing panel turned from red to green indicating the rest of Task Force HAMMER were in position and ready to capture the target. Looking through the Cluster Fly's night vision scope he located a lone Goblin Glider and two individuals riding the vehicle as they fought over a large metal brief-case.<p>

"Got you." he said firing the weapon and watching the missile streak towards them. Dropping onto the fire escape he sprinted down and headed for the black Jeep Wrangler parked in the alley. Climbing into the passenger seat he nodded at the figure dressed in SWAT Riot Gear.

"Let's get this thing rolling Control." he told the driver who gunned the engine and headed towards the next marker. Far off an explosion rocked the street and Nijo knew hoped that Tyto was in position to begin the pursuit. Elizabeth walked over to the crash site, the big grey case plainly in sight; from the looks of it the Hobgoblin was out cold, but their target Kephi was still moving, flicking a switch she sent a second pulse running through the Avenger's body.

"Package Secure Sir." she said over the comms, "Contents accounted for plus an extra bonus, we caught ourselves an Avenger."

"Good work Tyto head to rally point delta for package hand over." Nijo said as Control preformed a hand break turn around a corner, "We're ninety seconds out, think you can last that long?"

"I'll chance it." Elizabeth told him, "Slow her down will you." she told the smoking mail box next to the crash site as she headed out on foot as the Scarab got to her feet for the second time. She began to give chase only to find her feet sinking into the road before stopping trapped in the tar and pavement.

"Sorry about this." Ghost said his head popping out of the letter box, "But it's only fair that she get's a head start."

"I will burn your soul on a pyre of the dead spirit." Kephi yelled, the road surface trembling slightly as Ghost floated into one of the buildings. Turning around he saw a dark haired woman in combats armed with a syringe. Desperately he tied to go intangible but he still felt the prick of the needle as the woman stroked his face plate.

"Don't worry let Bile look after you." she purred as she pulled out a second needle.

Elizabeth ran down the street as behind her Kephi smashed open the asphalt tomb that Ghost had placed her in. Breaking left Elizabeth chanced a look back only to see Kephi already at the intersection a massive compound bow in her hands.

"I'm thirty seconds from hand-off point but I have problem." she yelled down the crystal, "I need missile protection."

"Don't worry I'm running Overwatch." Toxin told her, "Keep going I've got you covered." he added as he watched Kephi fire her first missile. Firing a strand of webbing he intercepted the barbed arrow before quickly firing tow more strands catching a second pair of arrows. Screaming Kephi charged again as Elizabeth turned right at the next junction only to find a broken down fuel tanker blocking her path.

"Crap escape exit blocked, I'm taking an alternate route through the Manhattan Mall." Elizabeth told the others as she fired three shots weakening the glass before diving through.

"Tyto we're shifting to your position." Nijo told her, "Get ready for connection."

"Roger Nijo, Toxin can you see her?" Elizabeth asked looking back over her shoulder only to see the Scarab was no longer chasing her. Suddenly there was a massive explosion and the sound of car alarms going off. "Don't worry she added I think I know where she ended up." Smashing through the other end of the mall Elizabeth rolled down the steps and landed by the Jeep Wrangler. Popping the boot Elizabeth jumped in and Control put her foot down and drove towards the next Rally Point.

"Guys." Toxin called over the crystal link, "Target is moving on an intercept course, suggest you take escape route Romeo to keep the distance at a fixed point."

"Do it." Nijo told Control who preformed a quick 180 degree turn and headed back the way they had come. Looking out the back Elizabeth saw Kephi turn the corner her body covered in vivid orange flames, probably caused by the fuel tanker she had charged through.

"Nijo, Kephi went from a Hazard to a Fire Hazard, hose her down." Elizabeth ordered. Nijo growled and popped out the sunroof setting up a cut down M240 LMG and fired it at the burning god. Behind him he heard sirens and he turned away to see a blockade of police cruisers blocking the path.

"Keep going," he ordered Control as he reached down for the Milkor Multiple Grenade Launcher, "Let's hope this stuff is still good now Tate's gone." He fired the launcher, unloading six grenades that impacted with the central police car. In seconds the acid inside the grenades had dissolved the car allowing the Jeep to cruise through the road-block. Kephi stopped at the road block and shook herself a wave of flame flying down the street. Nijo ducked down and closed the sun roof as the fire engulfed the car. Control wrenched the steering wheel sending the car spinning right towards the Brooklyn Bridge, Kephi once again out of sight.

Back at the barricade Kephi kissed one of the police women passionately sucking the life out of her before tossing the skeleton to the pavement. The energy she had sapped from the unfortunate victim coursed through her body healing the stab wounds from the glider as well as the numerous bullet impacts and burn damage. Curiously she looked around before seeing a parked black Suzuki Hayabusa chained up outside one of the restaurants. Walking over to the bike she snapped the chains with her bare hands she sat comfortably on the saddle stroking the handle-bars. The remaining police officer kept their distance she had killed five of them already to slack her thirst and heal her body.

"Hey you can't take that its stealing." a well dressed man yelled from the restaurant as his biker girlfriend, the owner of the vehicle walked up to her.

"But I'll pay you everything its worth." Kephi told him stroking his cheek and then his chest before sitting back on the bike, the man suddenly started gagging and spluttering until he fell down to his knees. A policeman ran over and started giving the man the Heimlich Maneuver causing a river of small gold coins to fall from his mouth. The woman and the police officer gasped before sticking their hands into the pile of coins as more flowed out of the man's throat. Kephi revved the engine before driving off after the fleeing Jeep Wrangler and the members of Task Force HAMMER.

"Okay we're at Rally Point India." Tyto broadcasted, "Mystique get into position. Mystique come in, crap."

"No rendezvous?" Toxin asked as he landed on the car's roof.

"None Mystique was meant to lead Kephi to the drop zone but she's not here." Elizabeth said, "Geode are you and Ghost ready to pick up the target."

"Roger that Tyto." Geode replied, "Ghost just arrived."

"Good we're going to have to do Mystique's work for her. Toxin you're the courier the rest of us will run interference." Elizabeth said handing Toxin the case. The car shook and a massive lance slammed into the car as Kephi rammed the commandeered motorcycle into the side of the jeep impaling control and the car's fuel tank.

"Everyone out." Elizabeth commanded, "Toxin get moving." she barked as Kephi made a grab for the case just as Toxin jumped off the car's roof.

"Traitorous Carnivore." Kephi hissed springing off of the Jeep after Toxin as he swung along the coast of the Hudson. Nijo pulled Control out of the Jeep and removed her helmet and chest plate.

"Damm Victoria you are one lucky woman." he commented.

"I don't feel lucky." Victoria replied as Nijo and Elizabeth supported her shoulders, "What happened to the car."

"It got Scarab Swiped." Elizabeth told her, "Do you have any idea what's inside because she really wants it."

"Just document drafts, nothing overly special or valuable, at least not to her." Victoria replied as she was helped down the steps towards the river. Waiting on the bank a dark Sunseeker Predator 45 crawled up to the jetty, a beautiful dark haired woman dressed in leather with large dark glasses on.

"Your late." Elizabeth spat, "Toxin's out there picking up your flack as we speak Mystique, now get this thing to Rally Point Zulu." Mystique hissed and throttled the Predator's engine causing the boat to roar into life following the golden glow leaping from building to building.

Toxin landed on the surface of the road exactly at the centre of Point Zulu as Kephi slammed down next to him holding her massive Kophesh and advancing menacingly. Morphing his arms into massive hatchet style weapons, Toxin dropped the case and watched as Kephi glanced over to the item.

"Try it." Toxin said menacingly. Kephi lunged throwing the Kophesh into the air, the weapon flying up before slashing into Toxin's back causing him to groan in pain as the Emerald Scarab reached the case, her hands now clenched around a pair of small raiding axes. Angrily she cut through the case and removed the papers before cupping her hands round the tiny body of Eric O'Grady who gasped and spluttered before becoming full size.

"That's it next time we have a date, let's just go to a restaurant and not snoop around Osborne's office." O'Grady told Kephi who smiled at him. There was a whistle and a sniper shot impacted with the Scarab's head the large bullet partially sticking out of her skull.

"Target tagged, one extra along with the Scarab." Nijo ordered, "Ghost send them down". he added. The pavement suddenly turned intangible and both Kephi and O'Grady fell through the floor into a large underground chamber decorated with hieroglyphics. As she arrived Kephi groaned in pain as certain symbols flashed keeping her restrained. Sitting in the chamber Geode and Ghost watched as Toxin tied Antman up firmly with his webbing.

"Well Mad One you have some things to explain. The markings on the walls are enscribed from a passage from the book of the dead which roughly translates as; Bound to this circle evil god, bound down by invisible chains, bound to the servitude of man or here forever remain" Geode told her indicating the circle of crystals around the kneeling deity, "Cooperate and you get this." she added wavering the scarab pendant in front of her captives face.

"Jack's Pendant, he gave it to me in Paris." Kephi said excitedly, "It's mine by legal right mountain nymph return it and I'll allow you to serve me."

"No dice Kephi, give us the information or Ghost here smashes it with this." Geode said handing Ghost both the medallion and the claw hammer from Tate's interrogation kit.

"What information do you require?" Kephi hissed poisonously not taking her eyes off the pendant.

"Somebody hired some assassins to kill me and my team." Geode announced, "I think it was you since three of them were released mid transit while under your control. I even have your signature to prove it." she added handing Kephi a copy of the prison transfer slip. Kephi scanned it and laughed evilly before glaring at Geode her eyes burning with golden fire.

"Foolish daughter of the hills, I didn't sign this." Kephi answered. "The markings are incomplete, this symbol may represent the Scarab but the symbol for my name has additional letters."

"What?" Ghost said almost dropping the hammer.

"Are you sure?" Geode asked, "Your kind lies as easily as it breathes."

"I never released any assassins, why would I have need of a hatchet man or cutthroat when I have the power to kill my enemies in person with my bare hands." Kephi stated. "Still whoever is responsible for this heresy will feel the full fury of Kephi, Lord of Heliopolis."

"Hmm, we can't force you to tell the truth but I want a pledge that for the events of tonight you won't seek revenge on anyone responsible save the leader of the assassins." Geode asked, "In return you can have the amulet."

Ghost suddenly started convulsing and wheezing his shaking hands dropping the hammer. In one swift notion Kephi reached out and grabbed the amulet placing it round her neck. "Ghost what's wrong?" Geode asked as he continued to convulse as he tried to scratch his way out of the chamber with his bare hands. There was a sudden glow and Kephi was levitating in the middle of the room, golden fire dancing around her before the flames consumed Antman and her. Almost immediately the fire died down and both of them were gone. Opening the door Elizabeth busted into the room from the dock where the Predator was docked, "Oh my god, he's having a panic attack. Somebody call 911." she cried.

"Well that could have gone better." Mystique replied sarcastically as Nijo and Victoria pushed past her. "Do you think the bitch is responsible for this?"

"Hard to tell." Victoria said, "And you could try helping." she added.

"I don't take orders from humans like you." Mystique purred walking out of the chamber.

"Tonin," gasped Ghost she jumped me earlier.

"Stay calm Ghost." Victoria ordered, "I need to give you a shot of painkillers, according to the Taskmasters report this mixture was used to cure patients she attacked at the Initiative."

"I really don't like her." Nijo commented helping Elizabeth hold Ghost down while Victoria injected him with the pain-killers, "Never have."

"I didn't choose her to be your friends." Osborne's voice reverberated around the chamber as golden fire erupted from the walls before dying down revealing Kephi, the Steel Soldier and Osborne all standing before the Task Force HAMMER agents.

"Now do you want to tell me what you're doing with my stolen documents?" Osborne asked picking up the charred papers off the floor, "Why you kidnapped an Avenger and most of all which charge you prefer to be arrested for; Obstruction of Justice, Kidnapping, the Procession of Stolen Goods or the Murder of a high ranking HAMMER officer?"

"We didn't kill anyone?" Victoria said, "What are you talking about?" She gulped as Osborne produced a gun and shot her at close range in the chest.

"Now who's next?" he asked as Victoria fell to the floor before cackling manically


	7. Cleaning House

**Avengers Tower, New York City - 12:40 23/08/2011**

"Mr Rhodes" Victoria addressed as the well built man sat in her office perched near the summit of Avenger's Tower, "I have some bad news about the others."

James waited for the bad news, it had only been hours since he had awoken from the coma, thanks to Toxin at least he was in a state to wake up, without his help James would be six foot under instead of thirty stories up in the air. Still the jibes and nasty retorts he had got from some of Osborne's Avengers when he had arrived was enough to make him feel like he was in hell. "What bad news?" he asked Victoria.

"Shortly after you were hospitalized the mole revealed herself. It was Tate, within two hours everyone else was dead from various kinds of poisons. The remains were taken to a decontamination facility we still don't know what the actual chemical she used was but it was," she paused, "messy."

"Where's Tate now?" James asked angrily.

"Botswana, she left the country in the gun-ship, Norman has been given permission to send a meta operative and a transport team to pick up Tate for trial." Victoria told James, "It won't be easy however; we've picked up senior level HYDRA communications from the area, no doubt Tate was working for them."

"I want to bring Tate in." James offered, "I want to make sure she suffers for what she had done."

"Tate won't go down without a fight, you may have to kill her. If it came to that would you be able to follow through?" Victoria asked.

"If I had to, she made it easy when she killed the others." James replied.

"That's all I need to know." Victoria told him, "Be advised that Osborne wants this done as covertly as possible. The Botswanan Government might know about this operation but we want to keep it from the people at home. A lot of American aid money went into Africa First, Tate's so called charity, if they know that they were funding HYDRA the fall out could be catastrophic."

"I won't fail you, Tate will be brought to justice one way or another." James answered as he stood up and walked out the door slamming the portal causing the window to rattle. Victoria smiled as her eyes flashed yellow and patches of blue skin appeared across her face, "Osborne," Mystique said to the TV screen mounted on the wall, "The last loose ends are being cleared up."

"Good work Raven, in a few hours I will have control of Task Force HAMMER, Victoria's biggest weakness is her foresight, she assembled a second team in case she needed to dispose of the first group, they will serve me more successfully then the rabble she threw her lot in.

James walked past the Avengers pent-house ignoring the cat-calls and insults thrown at him by Ms. Marvel, Hawkeye and the Steel Soldier. Any other day he would have tested his metal against these three but today Tate was the enemy, Osborne had given him free reign to do what he needed to. This time tomorrow Tate would be dead given the same mercy that she had shown Elizabeth, Toxin and the others. Even Ghost deserved a better fate then what he had ended up with. James was so deep in thought that he collided with an Arabic woman in a tank top and jeans leading a little girl through the tower.

"Sorry I didn't see you." James said to the woman, his eyes catching the ornate scarab pendant she wore.

"It's okay, come on Abby we've got a meeting with the Avengers." the woman told the little girl.

"Is that War Machine, Zara?" Abby asked, "I think you're cool can I get you're autograph?" she asked.

"It would make her day." Zara told James, "She's a massive Iron Patriot fan." she added.

"Sure." James said as Abby handed him a book and a pen. "To Abby fight the good fight, War Machine." James dictated as he signed the blank piece of paper. "Here you go." he added.

"Thanks War Machine." Abby cried before hugging his armoured knees, "So are you going on a mission for the Iron Patriot?" she asked.

"You can't ask that." Zara said.

"Actually it's a recon mission for Victoria Hand, Osborne's assistant." James lied, "Really boring but somebody needs to do it." he added as Antman stepped out of the lift.

"Abby look it's Antman, go with him I'll catch up I just want to speak to War Machine alone." Zara instructed.

"Okay." Abby replied running over to Antman who picked her up and put her on his shoulders.

"Mr Rhodes." Zara said, "Your going on a mission for Ms. Hand."

"Yes." James said nervously.

"Don't trust the changeling; the real Victoria is no longer here." Zara warned, "Everything she says is lies remember that when you face Ms. Williams."

"And why should I trust you, you're her; the Emerald Scarab one of Osborne's 'Dark Avengers'." James accused, "The necklace gave you away if you want to know."

"Because I made a mistake, more then one Abby is penance for one, you and Ms. Williams are the results of another." the Scarab told him, "I can't say more" she smiled a forced grin before stalking after Abby as she and Antman entered the Avenger's penthouse. James stood for a few seconds contemplating the warning he just received before heading to the hangers of Avenger Tower.

* * *

><p><strong>Abandoned AIM Facility - 16:55PM 2308/2011**

"We're here." Mystique told Norman and Daken as they arrived at a dilapidated factory, "AIM had a hardened bunker here, judging from what Victoria wrote our team of killers is here."

"Are you sure you want to do this?" Daken asked keeping an eye on Mystique, "We know little about these people, Hand kept all files regarding this special black ops unit secret."

"I need a Black Ops unit that I can trust to stay under control, as we speak Mentallo and Zola are dealing with the others but they won't last long, they will be dead just like you told Cornel Rhodes." Osborne told him, "Mystique lead the way." he ordered the mutant shape shifting as both he and Daken watched her turn into Victoria Hand clad in HAMMER body armor. The inside of the building turned out to be different to the outside, the walls studded with state of the art computers, the AIM logo covered over with the sigil of HAMMER.

"So where are they then?" Daken asked extending his claws.

"Here they come." Mystique told him as a cargo lift arrived revealing the second team. As the lift doors opened five figures emerged silhouetted against the green glow emitted from the member at the back. Standing proud the five agents stared down at Osborne and Daken as the disguised Victoria walked up to their position.

"Is it time." one of them asked.

"Yes, Alpha Team has failed remember your training and who you are loyal too." Victoria told them, "Do you want a demonstration?" she asked Osborne.

"It's why I brought Daken." Osborne told her, "If they can take him down in less then 90 seconds I will consider them as my Black Ops Team." he ordered as Daken tensed up and extended his claws.

"Target: Wolverine." Mystique told her team.

"We'll have him down in sixty seconds." the team leader told her as a pair of barbed arrows flew into Daken's eyes. Howling in anger and agony Daken leapt at his attackers only to feel a hot glowing fist slam into his chest knocking him to the floor. Struggling to get up something sticky mummified his arms keeping him pinned before he felt cold steel cut through his claws, his attackers blade undamaged by the effort required to sever the bone claws. Somebody crawled up to his mouth and slipped him something forcing him to swallow it, he recognized the texture as Carbonadium as the sword wielding attacker stabbed him through the arm, his healing factor slowed to a crawl, the effort sending him into a coma."

"Fifty Seven seconds very impressive." Osborne remarked.

"We can do it faster." one of the beta team replied, "Next time we will be faster by five seconds."

"It won't matter." Osborne told him, "See these people." he said pointing to the hologram of five stasis tubes that his armor was projecting, "They are Natasha Romanoff, James Logan, Patrick Mulligan, Charlotte Byron and the terrorist know as the Ghost. They failed me and now I'm sending them to their death, fail me and you won't be as lucky do you understand."

"Yes Sir." the beta team announced.

"Good, my Avengers will be away from New York for a while as will the bulk of HAMMER's security force, what I need you five to help Victoria with is to keep everyone out of Avenger's Tower. Do you understand me?"

"Yes Sir." The beta team repeated.

"Good, Victoria move them into the tower covertly I have a group of traitors to deal with." Osborne ordered.

"Yes Sir It will be my pleasure." Mystique replied licking her lips, "What about him?" she asked Osborne.

"Bring him back on a stretcher, we'll purge him and get him ready for tomorrow." Osborne ordered, "Make sure it's painful though, everybody appreciates a little pain in their life." he added walking over and stepping on Daken's neck listing to it pop and click.

* * *

><p><strong>Negative Zone Prison - 19:02PM 2309/2011**

The two HAMMER agents dragged a filthy bundle of hair and naked flesh through the corridors of the Negative Zone Prison before dropping her and an orange jumpsuit on the floor of one of the interrogation rooms.

"Get dressed." one of the guards ordered, "Osborne has made time to see traitorous scum like you Hand." Victoria groaned feeling each of the bruises that the guards had inflicted, the pain was nothing compared to the humiliation of what Armin Zola had put her through. Slowly she pulled on the jump-suit as the rest of Task Force HAMMER was dragged in one by one.

"Ghost are you okay?" Victoria asked as a timid looking man was pulled into the room along with a damaged faceplate from his armor.

"I'm fine." Ghost said putting on the faceplate, "Zola found traces of Serotonin in my bloodstream with the same signed tracers as those in Bushwhacker's blood. I remember Bile grabbing me just after I stalled Kephi."

"Some good that did." a voice said Victoria looked round to see the long red hair and green eyes of Natasha Romanoff the original Black Widow.

"So revealing your true colours Elizabeth." Victoria said snidely, "I wondered how long it would take for you to act. I must say that I hoped you and Logan would strike sooner but beggars can't be choosers."

"If you knew why didn't you go running off to Osborne and turn us in, you could have saved yourself the trouble of being locked up with us." Logan growled the chain on his neck preventing him from moving any further then the wall.

"Because we all wanted the same thing, Osborne dead." Victoria screamed.

"Now everything is out in the open." Norman said from the window as two guards dropped a comatose Geode into the room, thick layers of crystal growing all over her body. "Behold my team of traitors, but you know what they say put all your eggs in one basket."

"We're sorry." the Toxin Symbiote whimpered, "Please don't hurt us anymore."

"Are yes everyone of you has been broken some way, beyond repair I'm afraid still I believe that you can all be useful for one more mission." Osborne stated, "Your going to help me save the world. This is the thrall control tower buried in the ruins of Asgard that controls Loki's army." he said pointing to the projection of Asgard floating next to him.

"And what if we refuse?" Logan barked.

"Then you die, I've placed suicide packets in your body, they are even strong enough to kill you Wolverine." Osborne told them, "It's funny really a HYDRA agent named Tate Williams produced the initial strain, when SHIELD got hold of it they archived it, now with the help of Armin Zola it's being mass produced and you are the first test subjects."

"And what happens if we go on this mission." Ghost asked.

"If you survive I'll activate the packets burst function and you die, I think you all will help me, if you don't you will doom the entire human race." Osborne proposed, "Die here like dirty animals or later as heros, your names immortalized as the saviours of humanity."

"We'll take our chances at Asgard." Toxin said, "We'd rather die with dignity."

"You'll need help Toxin." Natasha added, "You can't go it alone I'll go with you and then I'll come for you Osborne."

"What the lady said." Logan growled, "And you'd better hope she get's there first that's all I'm saying."

"I'm already dead." Ghost answered, "But I'd best make sure that I leave something nasty behind for you Osborne."

"Is that a yes I'll go to Asgard?" Victoria asked.

"Yes unfortunately." Ghost clarified, "And your coming with us." he told Victoria.

"You have your answer now get out Osborne we don't want to look at your face any longer." Victoria yelled up at Osborne who smirked and turned away. "Oh you'd better stay away from Ms. Byron, Victoria she's a little perspective about your condition."

"What condition?" Victoria asked as the crystal casing around Geode cracked revelling painful wealts and bruises marking her skin. Osborne left and Victoria watched as Ghost slipped away to under the camera and fiddled with the wires before giving a thumbs up to Natasha.

"Did you get that?" Natahsa asked Geode.

"Yeah it should be heading to any remaining Comms Crystals now, hopefully James or Tate will get the message and think of something." Geode told her.

"Geode what's wrong with me?" Victoria asked touching the nymph's cold skin.

"Get you hand off me?" Geode said her voice full of fear.

"What's wrong with me?" Victoria asked as she began to panic.

"You're not fully human any more. You're from the dark forest of despair." Geode told her. Victoria touched her ears and felt elfin tips where the rounded ones once were, she felt stronger, her senses more sharp. She remembered Zola butchering one of the creatures that Kraven had sent back, remembered the Nazi geneticist painfully welding it's DNA to hers. She had known that she was a monster before Geode told her now as she put her face in her hands, she had confirmation.


	8. To Those About to Die

**Unknown Location, Unknown Time**

"Boss we lost Gauntlet and Bushwhacker; their vital signs went offline a few minutes ago." Janissary told the woman on the screen her face covered with a mask. "Judging from the feed they were killed by War Machine and Chemistro."

"You should have listened to me." Redback purred as she lounged on the sofa in Janissary's warehouse space, "Odette has a corrosive touch, nobody can stand it for long."

"Quiet both of you." Nike ordered, "What of the Sandman is he still active?"

"Can't tell his form melted shortly before Gauntlet went offline, then again that's never stopped him before." Janissary announced fiddling with the dials and controls, allowing him to flick through the carnage that had occurred in the Africa First Headquarters. Nike ripped off a piece of neck armor and scratched a sore spot underneath her ear brushing the black hair with red highlights away.

"Very well, we had to expect losses with the kind of group we're dealing with." she announced reattaching the neck armor, "What's the status on the others?" she asked

"HAMMER's prepping them for deployment as we speak." Redback told her, "Judging from your spy cams their heading on a suicide mission, it wouldn't even be worth hunting them."

"Your right if it was really a suicide mission." Nike told her, "Janissary update the deck, send Rhodes and Williams a clear message that their team mates are alive. If Dr. Zola has done his work right Ms. Hand should be easy to track. Redback I have a task for you head out to Botswana and deliver the pre-recorded voice message that we created when Osborne took the majority of Task Force HAMMER hostage."

"Yes Maam." Redback replied picking up a pistol off the table and heading to a stack of USB keys before carefully selecting one and slotting it into a tactical hard case.

"Shall I send the invitations out?" Janissary asked.

"Yes we'll need reinforcements to be effective in battle, I trust that you picked up the required items?" she asked Bile as she entered the room.

"It wasn't hard, let's just say Sand will stay loyal if he doesn't want his daughter to have a mysterious heart attack." Bile replied pushing a young woman into the room her arms bound and a gag across her face.

"Good, you all know what to do." Nike ordered, "Soon we'll be in charge and everything Osborne did will be washed away." The screen blinked off and Janissary flicked the record button on the old fashioned tape recorder to the off position.

"You really think it wise?" Redback asked, "To blackmail the most powerful person in the United States?"

"She's not there yet and I'm going to make sure she doesn't forget the people who got her there." Janissary sneered, "This is the only thing that will keep us safe from her when she has the countries entire security network at her fingers."

* * *

><p><strong>Complex 010, New York City - 11:22AM, 24th August<strong>

The Zeus landed by the sleek ultra-modern new Oscorp building and a whole team of HAMMER agents deployed efficiently out the rear ramp as Norman Osborne followed them in his Iron Patriot Armor. After briefly conversing with the head of security he ordered the HAMMER units to head inside. Minutes later the remainder of Task Force HAMMER were being dragged out and loaded into the Zeus.

"I want them secure and unable to escape until they reach the landing point, tell me you understand." he bellowed at the HAMMER Field Commander.

"Yes Sir." he replied, "Don't worry we've tested the safe-guards even if they do escape they won't leave the shuttle alive."

"You'd better hope that they don't escape, I'd hate to throw you in the feeding room Commander." Osborne threatened before flying away back towards Avengers Tower in the distance.

"Alright everyone back inside and remember the first sign of trouble, we shoot to kill." the Commander ordered, "Now check safeguards people."

"Hand is secure, Muscle Relaxant in her cuffs are active."

"Romanoff is secure, tranquilizers are already online to ease transition."

"Wolverine is secure, Liquid Carbonadium has been hooked up to his blood stream."

"Geode is secure, Anti Gravity simulator is active."

"Toxin is secure, Batracotoxin injectors are ready for activation."

"The Ghost is secure, time sensitive override code with rotating encryption are in place."

"Good," the commander told his crew, "pilot lift off, everyone stay alert, War Machine and Chemistro are still out there and we don't know what awaits us at the landing platform."

* * *

><p><strong>Zeus Class - HAMMER Assault Shuttle Brontes, Somewhere over Oklahoma - 14:52PM<strong>

The Zeus continued it's flight as the first units of HAMMER and the US Army clashed with the defending Asgradian Thralls, regular checks on the 'prisoners' made sure that the counter measures were still active, all in all the crew of the Brontes were having an easy time compared to virtually everyone else involved in the Asgard operation.

"Fifteen Minutes till drop off." the pilot confirmed as she scanned the area in front before checking the instruments only to see them reading at nominal levels. Despite it's bulk and armor plating the Zeus wasn't designed to get into dog-fights, every mile that the shuttle got closer to Site Alpha-Bravo Whisky, the more nervous the pilot became. Even with the escort of friendly F22 Raptors, the pilot remembered all too well the nasty turn that the air-battle took last time HAMMER came to Asgard.

"Brontes this is Falcon 1 we're detecting some kind of unidentified air-craft in the area heading on a collision course with your vessel. Recommend you take evasive action. Over." one of the Raptors broadcasted.

"We read you Falcon 1, we're also picking up the signature and are moving out of flight plan Over." the pilot broadcasted back, "I hate doing this," she cursed as she pulled the stick to the left causing the Zeus to jerk away from the unknown aircrafts trajectory.

"Brontes this Falcon 1 we have a problem." the Fighter Pilot called, "Falcon 2 and 4 were just destroyed by short range anti-air missiles. We're going to engage the target you just keep heading towards the landing point. Over." The pilot nodded and was about to responded when an armoured figure flew past the cockpit opening fire with canon fire on the lead F22 Raptor, the pilot ejected only to transform into a ball of fire as a second contact opened fire. The last F22 fled, activating its afterburners and leaving the Zeus defenceless.

"Right men, this is it." the Commander said, "We figured that somebody may come after the prisoners. Looks like we are right, ready your weapons and remember what will happen if we fail. Pilot keep flying this bird, the longer the shuttle isn't breached the easier our job at defending these scum will be."

"Sir do we have a positive ID on the attackers?" a Sub Commander asked.

"Negative but we figured the most likely attackers are James Rhodes AKA War Machine and Odette Williams AKA Chemistro, that's why we're equipped with EMP Rifles and Oz Corp's Alchemist Hazmat Armor." the Commander informed, "You Corporal," he addressed a soldier at the end of the Zeus, "If it appears we are losing terminate the prisoners."

"Yes Sir." the Corporal responded.

The pilot shook her head, "This is some shit we've got ourselves in." she muttered before calling out, "Contacts in range opening fire with automated sentries." she pressed the button and four Common Remote Operated Weapon Systems popped out of the hull and opened fire on the armoured attacker as his comrade landed on the deck and began to cut into the hull of the shuttle.

"Sentry 1 down, 2 to 4 are still online and scoring hits." the pilot announced.

"We've got a breach in progress." the Commander yelled as the HAMMER units surrounded the entry hole being cut in the upper hull.

"Sentry 2 just went offline, 3 and 4 are down to 100 rounds each." the pilot called, "Warlord this is Brontes we are under attack request support immediately, over."

"This is Warlord what's the situation Brontes, Over."

"We have two maybe more assailants attempting to breach the shuttle, we need immediate assistance, suspects are to be considered armed and dangerous, over."

"Okay ETA of support is three minutes, units are scrambling as we speak. Over" the radio suddenly went dead leaving the shuttle crew isolated as up-above the sound of the CROW turrets died replaced by the clunk as the hull was breached.

"Hull breach, activate magnetic traction and O² masks." the commander yelled, "Seal off the crew compartment." he added as the soldiers slipped on oxygen masks and activated their boots allowing them to walk unaffected by the breach of the shuttles structure.

"Come on you basterds." a HAMMER soldier growled, "Come get some." As soon as those words left his lips smoke filled the room blinding the soldiers as the attackers arrived, soon the shuttle bay was filled with the buzz of Pulse Rifle shots and the chatter of a Gattling Gun. Men screamed as they fell the noise defending, a pair of boots went flying through the air, filled only with skeletal stumps melted by a corrosive acid as several burning bodies flew out through the hole in the hull. Soon the smoke cleared and all the HAMMER agents were dead save the pilot safely sealed inside the cockpit.

"James, Tate is that you." Victoria asked peering at the armoured figure and the lithe person standing next to him.

"Not today, thanks to HAMMER you'll be easy kills." the armoured figure announced turning the visor transparent, revealing a hard edged female face. "Seal the hull." she ordered the second figure. Firing it's weapon a layer of gunk hardened across the surface, stopping the sucking pressure from removing the attackers. The person removed his mask to reveal a dark face lined and wrinkled.

"I was hoping the little bitch who took my name would be here." the man spat, "maybe if I kill you she'll turn up."

"Wait, I'm getting something." the armoured figure replied, "somebody survived, the pilot go finish her off Nike said no witness."

"My pleasure." Chemistro replied heading for the steel crew door and the pilot behind it.

"Warlord the attackers are identified as Calvin Carr AKA Chemistro and the terrorist known as Airforce, what's your ETA over." the pilot asked using a shinning crystal mounted on the instrument panel.

"One minute enemy forces are impeding our progress; you're on your own for now Brontes, Over."

"I know." the pilot replied turning to face the melting door. Carefully she picked up the wrist sprayers hidden in a hardened survival case before removing her helmet to reveal blond hair streaked with green, "Let's see who really deserves to call themselves Chemistro."

"Tate be careful." Warlord stated.

"Trust me James I'm always careful." she replied as the steel door completely vaporized in a cloud of green steam.


	9. Hard Landing

James Rhodes flew towards the Zeus Transport as it lumbered towards the landing zone, while everything looked peaceful the signs of Airborne and Carr's entry were visible from the smoking upper hull where the close combat weapons systems had been to the hole covered with crudely constructed Titanium plates, small flakes already flying off from the air pressure of the flying vehicle. Inside Tate would be alone, her duties split between fighting off the two thugs, flying the shuttle and finding the release protocol for the restrained members of Task Force HAMMER. As good as she was it would put her at a disadvantage, something that would be costly at best.

Carr stepped into the cockpit where he saw the pilot clinging to a P90 SMG her hands trembling as she held the weapon. "Please don't kill me." she whimpered, "Please."

"Put down the gun." Carr ordered only to be met with a shake of the head from the pilot, "Put down the gun or I shoot you." The pilot nodded and ejected the ammo casing and placed the weapon on the floor before rising her hands above her head.

"Brontes 3 this is Warlord what is your situation up there?" James voice came over the radio, still playing the part of a concerned commander.

"Lie to him and you survive." Carr ordered motioning to the pilot seat with his alchemy gun. The pilot sat down in the seat and took the comms. unit before clearing her voice. "Overlord this is Brontes 3 we have successfully repelled borders and sealed hull breach. Damage levels are high but we can still make the landing zone as long as we don't run into a problem."

"Good to here Brontes, escort force is pulling back to safe distance, once your team has been deployed return to HAMMER Command for debriefing and combat assessment." James answered as he pulled back from the Zeus. From what he had heard over the communication crystal that Tate had screwed into the instrument panel everything was going to hell. Activating the new set of armour's Repulsors he fired on the transport the jolt causing the whole shuttle to rock.

"What did you tell them?" Carr asked, "Why are they opening fire on us?"

"Hold on a minute." Tate asked resuming the whimpering voice as she adjusted the aircraft's surveillance system so that is showed James new armor firing on the Zeus's portside thrusters. "Is he with you?" she asked

"No he's not." Carr growled, "Carlene get out their and kill that basted before he scuttles us."

"Got it." Airborne replied opening the rear door and jetting out as Carr staggered to the back of the shuttle to close it. As he left Tate slipped the Zeus's Auto Pilot to one and got up from the seat before removing a fire extinguisher from the cockpit and slipping to a good ambush position. Soon Carr returned heading through the door to see the cockpit deserted.

"Where are you bitch?" he asked just before Tate brought the fire extinguisher down on his head. Carr crumpled from the blow as Tate reached down for his alchemy gun only to get a quick electric shock from the weapon as Carr pushed himself into a crouching position. "Nice try." he commented firing at the extinguisher causing it to turn to solid plastic. "But the weapon is DNA coded to my genetic signature. Only I can be Chemistro."

"What does that make me?" Tate asked firing a burst of flame from her wrist sprayers causing Carr to jerk backwards out of the cockpit.

Airborne flew around the back of the Zeus scanning the skies with the large EMP Launcher she was carrying. "Okay where the hell are you?" she whispered softly.

"Right here." James replied as he flew into sight from out of the clouds, his dark red armor and reinforced helm giving him the appearance of an ancient shock trooper flying straight at the mercenary. Airborne opened fire and caught the new War Machine Armor with the first blast sending it spiralling away to the ground.

"Too easy." Airborne huffed, "Just some civilian in a suit." she announced. Her suit suddenly beeped a warning as a salvo of rockets flew up at her, Elegantly she dodged the projectiles and fired two more shots down at the ground before her weapon ejected it's power source.

"Your out Airborne." James replied flying level with her, "And your outclassed, I was a Cornel in the United States Airforce."

"Rhodes." Airborne spat, "I was in the USAF as well, honourably discharged."

"I know I discharged you Flight Officer Carlene." James replied, "You were a good student but that won't stop me swatting you out of the air if I have to."

"Then let's see how long this thing stays in the air, find out who's the better pilot." Airborne answered upholstering a foot long knife and charging towards James. War Machine dodged and watched as Airborne carried on towards the Zeus before being sucked into the left turbine before emerging a massive explosion in her wake.

"So your Williams." Carr asked firing a shot that turned the cockpit windows from Perspex to gold, "You're the woman with the gall to steal my family name."

"Oh shut up I never called myself Carr." Tate replied firing back a spray of acid that Carr intercepted with a second shot transforming the lethal projectile into water. As the shot leaked onto the floor there was an explosion that sent both combatants skidding towards the right hand side of the Zeus. "James what the hell was that?" Tate asked as she clung to the wall and left the cockpit searching for Carr.

"Airborne just shredded the left turbine, luckily the right hand engine should be able to take the weight and keep flying until your ready for a manual landing." James answered as gun-fire echoed in the distance over the radio. "As long as the Zeus doesn't take too much damage it should be fine." Tate nodded and went past a bound Toxin to where Wolverine was strapped to a chair.

"Where is he?" she asked.

"Right here." Carr replied as he hovered in the cockpit door firing a beam of cobalt blue energy. Tate retaliated with a burst of flame that met the beam causing a large crystal radiating blue flame.

"Danger," the Zeus internal environmental monitoring equipment stated in a flat computerized voice, "Thermobaric Explosion interment in three, two." The crystal shattered sending a massive wave of heat and pressure through the Zeus's cargo bay, melting the dead HAMMER agents and causing the internal sprinklers to activate as a secondary explosion sounded from the right of the shuttle.

Airborne dodged and weaved firing a pair of semi automatic pistols at James who stood over the right hand turbine engine preventing a second kamikaze charge. Luckily the bullets were bouncing off the armour's shields as the shoulder mounted Gattling gun fired up at his target, the few rounds that hit causing cracks to appear in Carlene's armor. The Zeus bucked under his feet before a massive explosion ripped through the right engine causing it to fly off slamming into Airborne and knocking out her thrusters, the mercenary plummeting to the ground as the shuttle began to nose dive towards the Earth.

Tate and Carr fell into the cockpit as the Zeus nose dived down towards the ground, struggling with the stick Tate was unable to move the device at all as she glanced at the altimeter. Hands suddenly clenched around her throat and she spluttered kicking and screaming as she tried to throw Carr off. In the back of the Zeus she could hear an alarm sounding but she didn't have time to react as she blacked out slumping to the floor as Carr yanked the stick up causing the Zeus to skid along the ground as shards of dust and dirt kicked up in it's wake.

"Looks like I'm the only Chemistro worth a damm." Carr told Tate's body as he violently kicked her in the face before getting ready to spray her with his Alchemy Gun. Something sticky curl around his arms and he was quickly yanked back into the hold, his weapon clattering to the floor, as a gold substance leaked from the weapon over Tate, her skin blistering and burning before catching on fire. Back in the hold Wolverine held Carr down as layers of Symbiote webbing gagged him causing him to be silenced before he was loaded into the now empty security seats.

"Well that was rude." Ghost mused as he fiddled with his armor, "I presume we're on the ground a lot of my armor systems are non-responsive."

"Yeah we landed." Wolverine growled, "or crashed."

"Well any landing you can walk away from and all that." Toxin answered, "You okay Geode?" he asked the sick looking woman her face covered in crystalline growths.

"I will be once I get some dirt under my feet." she announced before walking over to the door and attempting to open the jammed portal. There was a rumble of the other side of the Zeus and James smashed open the door dragging Airborne's unconscious form into the shuttle securing her in the chair next to Carr's.

"Well if it isn't the prodigal Stark." Ghost mused, "Good old James come to the rescue. I rather hopped that you had died."

"Your concern is touching." James replied removing his helmet, "Is everyone okay, where's Tate?" he asked. Walking into the cockpit he saw Tate's body leaking orange gel mixed with white foam out of every orifice, he quickly checked for a pulse and found a weak but steady heart-beat.

"Is she alive?" Toxin asked crawling on the cockpit's ceiling.

"Barley, she seems to have unconsciously created some kind of coolant and impact gel to survive the crash." James told him as a bruise on Tate's temple healed, "She's in a regenerative form of hibernation, best not to move her." he added heading out of the cockpit.

"Chemistro and Airborne," Victoria stated, "Why did they attack us?"

"Think of them as replacements for Bushwhacker and Gauntlet." James explained, "They and the Sandman went on Safari and never came back, between HYDRA, HAMMER and Nike it was sheer luck that Tate and I got out of Botswana. We got your message as we headed across the Atlantic and devised a rescue plan, unfortunately we were hoping that the Zeus would stay intact and that Tate wouldn't full unconscious but the best plans of mice and men often go array and all that."

"So Nike knows were back on the grid." Ghost suggested, "Interesting that could mean that she has a mole in HAMMER or even in this team."

"No Conspiracy's today Ghost," Natasha ordered, "How long until Tate wakes up?"

"No Idea, we heard about the suicide agent Osborne implanted in you. Unfortunately Tate created twelve different strains, each with a different dispersal method and poison. Until we find out which one Osborne had Zola use we'll have to just do what Osborne wanted you to do." James told the others, "So Thrall Control Tower, shouldn't be to hard."

"It's a long hike to Asgard we're ten miles away from the LZ." Natasha informed them checking a slightly melted HAMMER tracking unit, the dead agent no longer having any need of it.

"Ten Miles that's a walk in the park." Wolverine snorted.

"Yeah but this park is infested with Thralls, Dark Elves, Giants and Asgradian Gods." Geode replied as she picked up a handful of sand and ran it through her fingers, "The Mother God also informs me that HAMMER is moving forward and that as we speak your son and his Avenger colleges are being dispatched to find you."

"Again your point." Wolverine asked.

"His point is that we're in no shaped to fight Osborne and Asgard, for now let's get to cover and work out what we're going to do later." James announced.

"What about Tate?" Toxin asked, "She can't move not like this."

"She's dead weight." Victoria stated picking up a dropped P90, "Leave her, it's time to put some distance between us and Osborne." she added hopping out onto the Oklahoma soil outside, "People we're burning day-light, I don't fancy being here after it gets dark. One by one the members of Task Force HAMMER until only James was left standing over the comatose Tate.

"Good Luck." he told her before turning to leave.

"Thank you." she whispered back.


	10. Internal Affairs

**Asgard Ruins Perimeter, Oklahoma - 17:22PM, 24th August**

James slid down the slope opening fire causing the thralls to scatter as the rest of the team slid down behind him. They had faced low intensity opposition all the way to the ruins of Asgard and now they were finally in sight. As the team crashed through the final wave of opposition they bolted into a collapsed hall and vaulted into a church crushed beneath the wreckage, the stain glass windows sticking out like jagged knives from the walls and ceiling. Panting Victoria sat down on a pew as the rest of the team blocked the entrance from any further thrall incursions.

"You know you didn't have to bring that thing with us." Geode said snidely, "Still you held up better then Ghost he could barley carry the case for more then five minutes."

"Physical lifting isn't my speciality, that's why we have someone with more broader limbs like War Machine to carry stuff like that." Ghost spat back.

"It's hard to believe that I missed this." James told Natasha as they moved the alter to the back of the church, "Still I suppose being in a coma and then almost being killed multiple times in Botswana might do that to a man."

"You know the rest of us aren't getting out of this." Natasha replied as Toxin moved a font and blocked up the final hole. "Osborne injected us with a deadly suicide weapon, as soon as we complete the mission we are dead. And with Tate left behind we have no chance at getting the antidote in time." she added.

"Don't be so sure." James told her, "If the mission goes to plan Osborne is going to give us the formula of his own free will."

* * *

><p><strong>Osborne's Camp, Oklahoma - 17:52PM, 24th August<strong>

"So that's what happened, we were attacked by Chemistro and Airborne, we crashed, I blacked out and by the time I came round your sick little pervert had dragged me half way back to base." Tate told Osborne as he removed the dented pieces of armor he was wearing. "Honest Mr. Osborne I had no idea we would be ambushed like that."

"Any evidence for her story O'Grady?" Osborne asked wearily.

"Well I've never met Airborne before but I remember seeing a file on Calvin Carr and he was defiantly there. As for the black-ops team, they must have high-tailed it as soon as the Zeus crashed because they were gone. Daken and Brigade are still on their trail even though I thought it better to return to base." Eric answered, "I believe her sir and not just because she has a pretty face." he explained as Tate glared at him, her eyes boring through the man's chest.

"Very well, O'Grady take five and then come back here I have another assignment that I need you to take care of." Osborne ordered. Eric quickly scampered away and Osborne grabbed Tate by the arm and rolled back the sleeves of her flight suit, "Ms. Williams you're not fooling anyone." he spat as he threw her hard onto the floor. "I know why you're here and I'm not going to give you the formula I used on your friends."

"I'm not here for them Osborne." Tate answered through gritted teeth, "HYDRA abducted my son and sold him as a biological weapon. He was purchased with gold confiscated from the Strucker account by HAMMER. I want your help to find out who's responsible and punish them."

"So you want to be part of Internal Affairs?" Osborne said before bursting into laughter, "Yes because I'm going to allow that." Tate bowed her head before placing a gold bar at Osborne's feet.

"That's proof; not all the money came from Strucker's coffers, the US treasury is investigating whether or not HAMMER had anything to do with a raid on Fort Knox." she informed him smiling sweetly, "You see you might be in control of all the armed forces but the internal affair board is still free to operate as they see fit. The Oversight Committee is losing faith with brilliant God Slayer Osborne, they want to know he's," she paused, "clean. You can't stop me from investigating and I'd rather hope you would have the intelligence to help me rather then hinder because as you know, women can be very fickle."

"If you're trying to blackmail you'd better be sure that your going to get away with it." Osborne snarled

"Actually the answer I was looking for was, 'yes Tate oh most fair and magnificent woman, I would gladly help you with your investigation', Tate stated. Osborne growled under his breath his hands crushing the sliver of armor plating he was carrying.

"I'll take that as a yes." Tate said, "Oh by the way, if I were you I'd find something to placate me with. When I get angry I make the Hulk look civil." she added as she walked out of the command tent. Passing Antman chewing on a chocolate bar she smiled before muttering, "Good Luck he's in a really bad mood."

"Great," Eric moaned as he headed nervously into Osborne's Tent.

* * *

><p><strong>Dilapidated Chapel, Asgard Ruins, Oklahoma - 17:59PM, 24th August<strong>

"So this," Victoria said pointing to the blinking holographic map of the ruins of Asgard, "Is the Thrall Control Tower, we take that down and we reduce the Asgardian Army's size by over 50%."

"And give Osborne the signal to terminate us at his whim." Toxin added sulkily.

"Does anyone think that we might get epilepsy if we stare at hat map too long?" Ghost asked, "Because studies show that we are all in danger of it's effects."

"Jesus Christ." Victoria swore, "I am working with a gaggle of retards. If you had all done as I said we wouldn't be in this problem. We're all looking at a no-win situation, we're dead either way so stop your whinging and forget about the epilepsy because whatever the hell your worried about we have worse problems." she yelled slamming her hand into an antique gold cross mounted around the table where the map had been set up. Almost instantly she started cursing before kicking the cross away.

"Hmm it is as I feared." Ghost mused, "HAMMER is replacing all its top operatives with Vampires."

"Seriously Ghost." James announced, "We all saw Victoria trek over sun baked plains, if she was a vampire she would have burst into flames or at the very least sparkled."

"Sparkled?" Geode asked, "What does that mean? As for the burning hand I'm certain that the experiment preformed by Zola. Some faire folk such as elves and pixies have a severe allergic reaction to metal."

"He he sparkled." Ghost snickered, "What that means Geode is that James has a poor choice in movies."

"Enough." Natasha snapped, "All of you stop bickering." she ordered, "Victoria how painful is your hand?"

"It's healing, and quickly." she announced, "Still that limits my plan of placing thermite bombs on the tower's foundations and burning them out. And since Tate is elsewhere then we don't have immediate access to any oven bake plastic explosives." she added.

"If the tower is made of any kind of mineral I should be able to turn it to sand. The only problem is that some magical structures have the nasty ability to recreate themselves. It's the reason why Asgard usually reforms so quickly as long as Odin or Thor was within the cities walls then regeneration took less then a day." Geode informed them.

"Logan do you have any ideas, I mean you have done this longer then any of us." Natasha asked.

"Something stinks and the reek is getting stronger." Wolverine announced.

"What is it?" James asked, "Thralls, Asgardians or is it just the fact that Ghost hasn't washed for five years."

"Worse then that, it smells like my son and he's not alone." Logan told them, "Judging from the scent he's travelling with Stonewall, Deadpool, The Lizard and Turncoat Tate."

"Of course Project Brigade." Victoria moaned, "Your not wrong Logan." Wolverine growled as she mentioned his name, "Osborne met a young soldier called Thorne who sacrificed himself twice to save Osborne from Deadpool. Osborne took his body and Baron von Blitzschlag turned the corpse into a DNA sponge. Any genetic material can and will be added to the roster of profiles for him to use in battle. The body itself was reanimated by machinery and computing powers. I had no idea that the project was in anything but it's infancy though." she added.

"Then let's rip this techno zombie's head off." Logan announced unsheathing his claws. "It's bad enough Osborne sent us to our doom but now he's sending his Avengers to get in our way."

"You forgot about the assassins that Nike hired." Toxin added, "Airborne and the bad Chemistro are a clear indication that she knows we're back in the game."

"I have an idea." Victoria said nervously, "Let's not be here when our enemies arrive. This church is practically a kill box and I for one would rather save the day and then die instead if dying before saving the day." she added wrapping an Assault Rifle in a cloth before holstering it on her back before slotting some frag grenades in a bandolier. "Now let's get this show rolling, the faster we move the less chance that Wolverine Junior and his Corpse Buddy won't catch up with us."

Yeah if only it were that easy." Wolverine snarled as the team picked up their gear and headed towards the buckled doors at the front of the church and Asgard's Interior.

* * *

><p><strong>Osborne's Camp, Oklahoma - 18:22PM, 24th August<strong>

Scourge stomped past a broken down M1 Abrams Tank towards the pair of women dressed in desert camouflage waiting by the checkpoint. As he arrived the guards quickly saluted and walked further down the fence line to give the commander his privacy.

"Commander Sir." One of the women said saluting smartly.

"Relax Bile I know why you're here." Scourge answered, "Who's your friend?" he asked.

"Ubermesch 022," the woman replied snidely, "But I was given the code-name Redback by SHIELD since I was the anti Black Widow. Now where is 021, scans show she's in the camp."

"The Internal Affairs woman I presume." Scourge asked Bile.

"Yeah Tate Williams herself." Bile replied, "No messing around with hormones this time, a bullet through the brain will suffice in this scenario."

"You understand that if Osborne catches you or Doctor Williams somehow evades your assassination attempt, that I can do nothing to help you. I have my loyalties and Osborne cannot even for one moment consider that I have been disloyal to him." Scourge explained, "As I mentioned to Moult, should you be interrogated you are not to mention anything about my off-base activities, do you understand soldier?" he asked

"Yes Sir." Bile replied loudly as Scourge waved the guards back to their post.

"Your free to head inside." Scourge replied removing a large hunting knife from his ammo belt. "As for you two." he sneered at the guards, "You two know to much." he answered jamming the knife in one before snapping the neck of the other. "Your sacrifice hasn't been in vain Marine." he told the dead bodies as Bile and Redback headed into the HAMMER command post invisible in the crowd of army units milling around and preparing for the next big assault.


	11. Tunnel Vision and a Taste of Acid

**The 'Tunnel', Asgard Ruins, Oklahoma - 21:42PM, 24th August**

The team was making good progress through the ruins of Asgard despite the rough going on foot although the lack of thralls or any serious threat save Task Force Hammer's pursuers made this almost worthwhile. Despite this there was still a long way to go and Natasha knew that as they got closer the teams courage might waver, it was after all hard to walk knowingly to your death.

"Hold up." she heard James whisper as they reached an overhanging ledge that led down to a hall that had partially collapsed, one wall slanting at an angle to form half a bridge to the other side. "We have contacts, four thralls and something else, from the looks of these guys they were Osborne's Initiative who vanished in these ruins and never came out as Natasha crawled quietly up to the edge.

"That's them, four fifths of the F5 team, so much for the Initiative sorting out the problems at Asgard." she replied, "I don't see Tempest but that woman looks sort of like Jessica Drew only there is something different apart from the clothes. She looks almost regal, the problem is that she is listed as deceased." she trailed off as Ghost silently flew past her and down into the chamber, "Ghost what are you doing?" she asked.

"Lady Sif the soul matrix is online, the enemies dead will soon be transferred and transformed into the next generation of Valkyries and Enhejier for the front line." Glow Worm croaked as Ghost slipped behind her holding his comms. crystal up to the speakers.

"Ghost get back here, they'll spot you." Geode snarled as she struggled to see where he was going next. Ghost continued his solo recon as the former thralls talked slowly while the person called Karnilla listened intently. Surely not Karnilla, the former Queen of Vanhiem, Natasha thought, then again she silently added Asgardian didn't necessarily play by the same rules as mortals.

"We have to move." Wolverine growled, "There catching up, from my guess they just entered the 'tunnel'." Natasha nodded the 'tunnel' as Toxin had called it was a 500m tube that twisted up and down and had been barley big enough for War Machine to slip through. The thinner Daken and Brigade would have no problem, it was as if they were stuck between a rock and a hard place, they had no choice but to move forward.

"Toxin, Geode seal the tunnel, we'll have to take these Asgardian's out if we want to keep our hides." Natasha ordered. Toxin quickly set up a web of silk between the entrance and the rest of the tunnel as Geode caused the walls to contract closing in on the pursuers as War Machine and the others jumped down ambushing the god and her escort. With a quick round house Natasha knocked the American Eagle over as Ghost struck Karnilla blasting her with an electrical pulse. Across the room James easily smashed Glow Worm dragging the young woman out of the suit before crushing them armor under foot. Quickly Cyclone spun up to speed and changed the balance of power as he pinned the attackers to the wall and the Asgardian targets recovered.

"Black Ops by the looks of it." Bison explained as the American Eagle handed Glow Worm a spear, hardly a replacement for her destroyed armor but still deadly looking, "What shall we do with them Maam?" he asked.

"Take them to the nearest enthralling chamber, we can use them as canon fodder for fighting the armies of Midgard." Karnilla answered stroking each of the pinned members of Task Force HAMMER causing their bodies to become wrapped in crystal before they quickly blinked out of the room with the thralls. "You can't hide." she called upto the ceiling where Geode and Toxin were hiding, "We'll find you soon, and when we do you will see that your four friends down here got off lucky." she added as she stalked away.

"Four of them?" Geode asked, "That mean's one of them wasn't captured." she added

"That's right." Ghost announced as he phased out of the ceiling, "I quickly dodged Cyclone's blasts and avoided capture. I would suggest that we move quickly or the other's might be lost and while I would gladly see Cornel Rhodes suffer I suppose we might need them later on." he hummed.

"Well that's what Three Million Dollars looks like." a voice growled from the end of the tunnel. Standing at the end was Daken and the corpse like form of Brigade the later holding an Assault Rifle, the red dot dancing over Geode's forehead.

"Free Willed Combatants detected." Bridge growled, "Analysis Toxin - Weakness Sonics and Heat, Analysis Ghost - Weakness Lack of Physical Strength, Analysis Geode - Weakness Terrestrial Separation. Suitable Combatants for Beta Test. Entering Combat." he added firing a shot at Geode who transformed the bullet into sand before dropping to the floor as the shooter did the same.

"Tell me where my father is and I'll make this quick." Dakern growled extending his claws and racing across the ceiling towards Toxin and Ghost.

"He's been taken to be transformed into a mindless Zombie." Ghost announced as he dodged one of Daken's wild slashes as Toxin transformed his arms into massive spade blades as he slashed wildly at the faux Wolverine. The two super powered combatants met blades as Daken scythed through the Symbiote's flesh causing Toxin to scream in pain before slamming his claws into the alien's chest before both combatants slammed to the floor as Brigade's rock hard fist was melted away, stripped away by Geode's powers. Angrily Brigade sent a pulse through the floor, pink energy stunning the combatants and causing Toxin to spasm wildly as the alien flesh rippled away to reveal the naked from of Patrick Mulligan.

"Application Maria Ramirez AKA Songbird." Brigade announced as he walked over to Patrick's unprotected form, "Target Toxin neutralized, suggested execution application - Tate Williams/Jerry Sledge Combination AKA Chemistro and Stone Wall" he answered as acid begun to leak over his flesh before grabbing Patrick by the neck, his flesh already beginning to sizzle.

* * *

><p><strong>Command Tent, HAMMER Base Camp, Oklahoma - 21:53PM, 24th August<strong>

Something flicked Tate in the head, angrily she turned away from the frustratingly slow computer that Osborne had given her and glowered at the thrower as another screwed up ball of paper came whizzing towards her.

"Seriously Osborne insisted that I need to be supervised but I didn't think he'd send the two most annoying people in the world." she hissed as she caught a third ball of paper, "Actually I take that back, make that the most annoying person and the most creepy person."

"Ah is the big bad Internal Affairs Mutant already annoyed at us Mac." Karla cooed as she screwed up another ball of paper and threw it, the projectile falling short next to the stinking pile of goo positioned almost directly behind Tate."

"I wonder what you taste like." Mac hissed licking Tate who chose this moment to sweat heavily. In an instant Mac hissed and screamed as the Symbiote's mouth foamed and bothered.

"What did you do bitch?" Karla said rocketing over to Tate and pushing her off the swivel chair and onto the floor. "Reverse it or Osborne will kill you."

"Unlikely." Tate replied squirming back into the chair, "As for the foam it's Sodium Peroxide, when I sweat random chemicals are created and it looks like Venom just got a taste of something he didn't like." she added while secretly thinking, "Serves the animated pile of crap right, maybe it's time you learned the old adage about eyes being bigger then your belly."

"Next time I bite." Venom warned.

"Really, I'm the person that invented the nasty nerve toxin ridding around in Wolverine and the Black Widow not to mention your grandson who by the way is a lot better looking then you, he smells better as well you cannibalistic moron." Tate replied watching as her barbed comments got the desired effects she wanted. Venom roared slamming Ms. Marvel to the floor before sinking his teeth into Tate's right shoulder just as Osborne walked in.

"Mac what the fucking hell are you doing you retard. Get out now, Kephi and Steel need assistance at sector Delta, more on those Dark Elves are attacking now move." he told the Symbiote who slouched out of the tent. "Ms. Williams I have talked to the Oversight Committee and they have indeed confirmed that you are to be given access. As such your being transferred to the Heli Carrier out of harms way." he said bitterly, "As such Karla and these two Marines are going to walk you over." as two women in combat fatigues walked over flanking Tate. "Now get moving before I decided to assign Mac Gangran to your little security detail."

* * *

><p><strong>Asgard Ruins, Oklahoma - 22:07PM, 24th August<strong>

Brigade screamed as his skin melted away in the place where Geode had smacked him around the face. Where the blow had landed a lilac burst of flame had erupted before his skin had leaked off leaving the un-dead super soldier faceless. Daken leapt away from where Ghost had been taunting him to tackle Geode sinking his claws into her waist.

"Not that I care but how the fuck did you do that?" he growled as he retracted his claws from her waist before stabbing through her arms as she attempted to block her face.

"Chemistry, I changed part of the bed-rock into Magnesium Pellets before I punched Semper Frankenstein over there. Magnesium plus and Acid equals a salt and water. By the way Adamantium reacts with several unstable isotopes." she added as she pulled Daken's Claws through her arm and into the ground before he retracted them and opting for a bare knuckle punch as Brigade staggered around behind them. Extending his claws he watched as the metal coating them became rust brown and flaky before they and the bone underneath disintegrated. "Adamantium 12, say goodbye to you weapons." Geode informed as she threw him off before getting to her feet.

"Regeneration Period Complete." Brigade announced, "Obtaining New Genetic Code." he added stabbing Geode from behind, the tip of his sampling spike, "Meta DNA Catalogued, Processing." he added as computerized numbers and formulas whirred across his eyes, "Error Mana Based DNA Structure, Recommendations - Terminate and Study Corpse at later date." he replied as he removed the syringe. "Error Bio/Technical Parasite detected infiltrating systems. Mission Parameters re-set." Brigade groaned before removing the spike from Geode's chest and wandering away from the group, his back rapidly healing over the blinking control panel.

"Come back Coward." Daken roared as he ran past Geode towards Daken only to be grabbed from behind with tendrils of Symbiote strand snapping Daken backwards at an alarming speed before slamming him into a wall, his head burying into the soil.

"That should teach you." Toxin replied petulantly, "Thank you for helping me." he told Geode, "Pat says thanks too." he added.

"Your welcome, what baffles me is why Brigade went AWOL and ran off." Geode replied.

"No Thanks required," Ghost said bowing as he phased out of the ground, "While you two were making with the fisty-cuffs I decided to inspect Brigades CPU and Operating Systems. I must say for somebody so smart Osborne decided to go for ruggedness over security. A classic mistake on the electronic battlefield." he replied smartly.

"Just for clarification where did you send Brigade?" Toxin asked.

"I had multiple choices but in the end I chose one that should serve our purposes." Ghost answered, "Brigade will walk into Osborne's camp and self destruct, the fusion cores should provide a nice bang that we would be able to see from here if we were not underground."

"And on that bomb-shell," Toxin stated, "We need to find the others but this place is a rat-run, we'll never find them in time." he added, "Do either of you have anything of Natasha's or the others so I can track them."

No, nothing." Geode replied, "We could always convince Wolverine Junior to lead the way but I'm guessing that will take to long."

"It will but that is the answer." Ghost replied cryptically, "Technically as Wolverine's son he belongs to his father. I believe that's all you need to work with." he asked Toxin.

"I suppose." Toxin replied rubbing Daken's neck, "I think I know where they are." he added as he pulled open a large semi collapsed door and skirted down the passage-way. "Let's just hope we are not to late."


	12. Loss of Hummanity

**HAMMER Base Camp, Oklahoma - 23:09PM, 24th August**

"And then she just left" Karla moaned as she escorted Tate to the Helicarrier Landing Pad along with the two US Marines, "She just left me there to die."

"Are you okay?" Tate said nervously, "Your not menstruating are you?" she added sarcastically

"And then when I wake up everything was different." Karla continued oblivious to the sarcastic comment. "And I was so scared; I think I'm going to die every day."

"Okay something is wrong here?" Tata analysed, "Are you on any medication are you having hormonal problems such as…" she trailed off before flicking the switch on her wrist gauntlets sending the tubes burrowing into her blood vessels. "You're here aren't you." she said calmly scanning the mountain of supplies being moved by HAMMER agents.

"That's right," One of the Marines said placing a pistol to the back of her skull, "Dr. Sophen recently had some hormonal treatment to reduce enhanced Serotonin levels. I simply gave her a hand and reduced her levels as far as they could go. If I knew that would turn her into a depressed wreck of a human being I would have brought a camera."

"Enough talking just take the shot." her comrade hissed, "021 isn't stupid, she's probably worked out a plan to escape by know."

"Red Back, thanks for the gift by the way, there really useful." Tate told Red Back as she pointed a wrist sprayer at Karla's head, the Avenger sitting on the floor rocking backwards softly. "And no I don't have a plan to escape." she added as she stiffened up. Bile took the shot and watched as the bullet simply got stuck in the skin before Tate turned and elbowed her in the face before grabbing Karla and running into the forest of boxes before turning left and hiding behind an automonus fork-lift that had ran out of power and was just sitting waiting for a cell change from the group of stumped mechanics leafing through the manual.

"Just let me die." Karla cried.

"Oh Shut Up." Tate hissed cutting her on the wrist before spraying a thick gel like substance into the Avenger's wound.

"Why are you trying to hurt me?" Karla asked sulkily before her eyes changed from mournful to angry. Slamming Tate against the Fork Lift, so heavily that the robot rocked slightly, "You have five seconds to give me a reason why I don't vaporize you for drugging me."

"The drug is an antidote you bint," Tate explained, "It temporarily boosts Serotonin levels. An assassin called Bile was messing around with your hormones to get to me. In a sense I just rescued you so put me down." she replied angrily. Karla dropped her and peaked over the top of the fork-lift to see Bile and Redback stop and look around nervously scanning the area with their weapons

"Bile? I know that name." Karla replied, "But from where?" she asked.

"All I know is that she reeked havoc at the Initiative a while ago, infected seven people with some kind of Serotonin Increase or something." Tate answered, "I need to find a way to lose her and my evil twin before they kill me."

"Hey you two." Karla yelled floating above the fork-lift, "She's over here." she added lifting the fork-lift up for the two villains to see Tate. "That's for calling me a bint." she added sneering down at her rescuer. Bile and Redback turned and the former went rushing in pushing down her ally in the desperation to reach the target. As she reached Tate, Karla 'accidently' let go of the fork-lift squashing the assassin underneath. "That's for screwing with my blood." she spat as Redback charged in firing a burst of fire from her M16 at the Avenger.

"You'll pay for helping 022 Avenger," she roared up as Karla flew through the bullets and grabbed the rifle before slamming the woman in the face as Bile crawled out from under the fork-lift. Tate quickly kicked her gun away before firing a shot of impact gel sticking Bile to the Forklift. Heading round the machine's prongs, Tate ducked as Redback sent a burst of flame heading straight through Karla and towards her.

"Redback be careful." Bile yelled up at her as she tried to struggle free. "One more blast like that and this thing will go up like the 4th of July.

"4th of July huh" Karla said firing a beam into the Fork Lift sending the vehicle sky-high. "If I were you I'd start running." she told Red Back. The former HYDRA Agent fired one last shot at Karla before running off knocking over a pair of mechanics who were rushing to the scene of the explosion. Dropping down Karla kicked the remains of Bile before putting her hand of Tate's neck and smiling, "Osborne come in, your Internal Affairs Problem just got terminated. We have one hostile on foot but she won't get far she just came for Williams."

"Maam what do we do with her?" one of the mechanics asked as Tate was loaded onto a makeshift stretcher.

"Take her to the skinning lab, Osborne wants to extract more chemicals before the corpse rots too much." Karla instructed, "Toss her in a freezer and then clear this mess up before the boss decides to terminate your contract for loosing that valuable piece of equipment." she added.

* * *

><p><strong>Thrall Transition Node, Asgard, Oklahoma - 23:17PM, 24th August<strong>

Toxin crept across the ceiling silently as Ghost floated alongside him while Geode brought up the rear, a pair of diamond climbing tools aiding her transition across the surface. Down below Carnilla and a group of three thralls were strapping James, Natasha Wolverine and Victoria to alters, the bodies of the HAMMER agents limp and unmoving.

"What is this place?" Toxin asked as a man in a lab-coat checked the bodies before walking over to where a suite of machinery sat.

"Thrall Control Node." Ghost replied, "This is one of thirteen all siphoning energy from the control tower for the conversion. That tunnel lined with crystals is where the power is channelled into the alters. When the enthralling is complete the tower acts as a massive transmitter run by a group of operatives around the observation level."

"And you got all that from a map?" Geode asked.

"No but last time I was here I downloaded data from Asgard that included habits and torture methods used by their enemies. This particular method is a favourite of the Enchantress and we all know he she works for." Ghost explained, "If that machine were to be destroyed then the process would stall."

"Your forgetting the guards," Toxin said licking his lips, "American Eagle and Kanilla are tough but the doctor is unfamiliar, likely not a threat just like the fourth a common hood by the name of Stink Bug, easy fodder for us." he summarized dropping to the floor and slamming into the American Eagle. Geode put her face in her hand before dropping after him, throwing a hail of crystal daggers at Karnilla who absorbed the projectiles before producing a crystal Longsword.

"I'm working with idiots." Ghost sighed before the armoured form of Stink Bug fired a round of gas grenades at the ceiling creating a stinking fog that caused Ghost to splutter as he went intangible before swooping down on the doctor. Across the hall Toxin was easily capturing the Eagle's crossbow rounds before swelling up to a monstrous size and advancing tongue flicking out as he smelt the air around him. Meanwhile Geode and Karnilla crossed crystal blades, the magic held within causing massive crystal to sprout of the wall.

"Heads up Boss." Stink Bug called dashing into the fray attempting to smash Geode round the face with his shield only to be pushed out the way into the crystal channelling funnel.

"Ghost we could do with that machine being turned off." Geode yelled as Ghost was blasted by an energy bolt fired at him by Doc Hopper. Quickly she ducked as Toxin went flying past, his body supporting a Tomahawk sticking out of his left arm. "Damm it." she cursed as she duck and rolled into the channel.

"Fire it up." Karnilla yelled to Doc Hopper who flipped a switch as Ghost lunged to late to stop him.

Geode got to her feet before ducking under a crystal as Stink Bug advanced again, clouds of putrid green smoke whirling around his feet. Moving quickly she slammed his head against the crystal before working on his armor, the plastic green shell melting into sand leaving the naked villain exposed.

"Fuck you that cost me a month's wages." Stink Bug complained throwing a grenade at Geode who swiftly created a shield of crystal reflecting the projectile past Stink Bug further into the tunnel. Angrily Stinkbug ran in only to be kicked into a crystal, the diamond shattering as a cloud of gas crept through the tunnel, the pink crystals turning a sickly green. From far off what sounded like thunder could be heard and both Geode and Stink Bug looked down the tunnel.

"What in Hades?" Geode asked as a bolt of lightning struck Stink Bug reducing him to green fog. Geode quickly blocked a second and third bolt before being struck by the forth propelling her out of the tunnel and into one of the alters. Toxin and Ghost looked up at the shaft as they attempted to remove the restraints from Victoria and James. The alters glowed blue before sending a massive current through the Task Force HAMMER team's bodies as Karnilla, the American Eagle and Doctor Hopper hid behind a crystal shield produced by the Norn Queen.

"Fascinating, Jonas's gas must have altered the structure of the carrier wave." Hopper mused. Toxin shook himself and snapped at Victoria who clawed at him hissing before the Symbiote ripped the restraints off of her as the others crowded around her hissing and growling.

"There just animals now, let them be a warning for other mortals that stumble into Asgard." Kanilla told the thralls as Victoria and the others ran out of the hall and into the darkened corridors of Asgard. "Now come we have other matters to attend to."

* * *

><p><strong>Heli-Carrier Lab, HAMMER Heli-Carrier, Oklahoma - 00:45PM, 25th August<strong>

"Just drop it there." A lab tech told the HAMMER agents who dropped Tate onto a cold metal table, "Thank you, I presume Osborne wants' the blood extracted as soon as humanly possible."

"Yeah this broad is a human chemistry set." the Commander replied, "Take it all before she denatures." he ordered as he and the squad left.

"Odette my darling what have they done to you." the doctor sighed, "Oh well it seems like a shame to waste your gifts." he added pulling out a scalpel. Quickly he felt for a pulse and smiled before putting down the scalpel and producing a syringe and jabbing it in her arm. "That should get you where you need to go." he added as Tate coughed in her sleep. The doctor walked over the door and activated the locks before placing his lab coat over the camera.

"Baron von Blitzschlag." Tate replied from her position on the table.

"Ah my darling I'm glad you're awake. I trust your well." the Baron asked as he walked over to the table where Tate sat defensively, "Don't worry I won't tell Osborne that your alive. After all Project Ubermesch was some of my most superior work, far more successful then the MVP line I work on now."

"So your working for Osborne?" Tate asked the Baron

"Only for the moment, my first loyalty is to my work." Blitzschlag replied, "I won't tell Osborne that my prize creation is alive. Now go before security arrives." the Baron told her, "And good luck." he added as Tate slipped into the vent system of the Helicarrier. Checking the crystal she had stuffed in her trousers she listened as Karnilla told her minions what had happened to her comrades.

"Looks like I'm going to have to find out a way to snap them out of it." she sighed, "All I need is a terminal and a boat load of time not to mention a healthy dose of good luck." she added as she slipped into the depths of the Heli-Carrier.


	13. Medical Monster

**Asgard, Unknown Time and Date**

"Ghost," the voice screamed, "Ghost get your hard bloody head off the ground and wake up." The man shifted and looked up to see the gleaming hall hewn artistically from the rock shift around him.

"What the…" he moaned as the woman's voice interrupted his train of thought, "Ghost we're running out of time."

"Tate is that you?" he asked lazily.

"Thank God your contingent. Can you move?" Tate asked. Ghost moved his arms and legs, they ached but he could just about move them.

"I'm mobile," he replied, "Where the hell are you?"

"The Helicarrier, Ghost something big is going down and we need to act fast." Tate replied as the sounds of sirens and alarms could be heard behind her. "I'm sending you some data to your HUD, don't block it because it's crucial to helping the others."

"How did you get into my armor?" Ghost asked, his voice full of concern.

"Two and a half days of hacking into Osborne's Back Door to your armor systems. Listen the formula you are seeing is a potent memory restoring drug, your minds were stripped of humanity by the energy blast but this should reverse the effects." Tate explained, "The problem is that it's only temporary, two hours max. I managed to hack into you suits oxygen filtering system to create enough to keep you sane for a few hours."

"And then I revert I guess." Ghost replied, "Would like to keep my brain state like this for a while Tate is there anything I can do to make this the norm not the exception."

"You need a special locking protein, one that's found in a few biological sources on Earth." Tate explained as pictures of a protein structure with additional base pairs appeared, "It's found in Symbiote DNA so I guess you know where the nearest source is." she added.

"Great so now I'm on a wild Toxin hunt." Ghost remarked, "Just great." he added

"There's more you need to implant the protein sample that I stored in…" she stopped and checked the console, "Ghost I'm going to make this quick, the Heli Carrier just got struck by oh my God is that." she remarked, "James's armor has the ability to mass produce some chemicals one you get the protein slot them into the analysis tray on his suit and turn on the computers, for some reason they shut down when he was converted. You have to hurry, in just a few hours the window will have closed. Tell them…" the connection fizzled out and Ghost did a quick satellite up-link to see the HAMMER Helicarrier smash into the ground as forked lightning struck the hull. Quietly he floated away, his suit scanning for the crystalline comms. systems radiation signal along Asgard's deserted halls.

Twenty minutes later Ghost had located the signal of what he hoped was his team mates although he didn't enjoy facing the team of feral agents. Suddenly he stopped as heavy footfalls could be heard echoing down the hall. Quickly he went intangible and hid in the wall as a compact light weight suit of armor, similar to his own crossed the junction and walked past leading a group of people deeper into the ruins.

"Janissary," he sneered, "And Carr, Airborne and Daken looks like there homing in on the rest of the team." he told himself as Janissary scanned the area above them before pointing upwards. Quickly Ghost floated up past them and into the room above to find his team mates huddled around a fire with a HAMMER agent slowly roasting above it. "Despicable," he murmured, "Now to save your primitive lives before your inferior intellect gives our enemies another advantage." Toxin hissed something and stared straight at Ghost before flicking his tongue and advancing past Victoria who was caressing a HAMMER Pulse Assault Rifle like it was a prize procession or a loved one.

"Ghost is here." Toxin hissed, "He smells different, like food." he added shooting a dart of webbing that impacted with his targets face-mask causing him to snap out of intangibility as the Symbiote advanced. Ghost lashed out as Toxin leapt on him, but his weak blows did nothing but make the Symbiote press down faster while the others surrounded them all growling or screeching like feral beasts. Scratching at his attacker Ghost removed a slab of Toxin's flesh just as he bit down on his other arm, gnawing through the metal and the skin only to receive a sharp electric shock.

"That's right I don't taste good." Ghost retorted as Toxin staggered backwards, "I hope this is enough to save you my…well your not my friends nugh." He fell backwards as Natasha slammed into him before furiously trying to remove his mask. Immediately Victoria screeched something and pointed the rifle at her causing the Black Widow to back off mumbling something under her breath. Ghost quickly went intangible causing the group of primitives to gasp, their undeveloped minds unable to comprehend that he wasn't some all powerful wizard, if they hadn't been trying to eat him he would have laughed but now wasn't the time. Judging from the Ghost Suit's X-Ray Scanners, Janissary had found a stair-case and was advancing, he would have to act quickly.

"Over Here" he called popping up near the fire. Victoria turned and opened fire, causing Ghost to snap back to intangible mode. "Hmm he thought, interesting but I suppose even a monkey can pull a trigger and reload a gun, it's just trial and error." Snapping back to the visible spectrum Ghost flew towards James, the squirming Symbiote matter desperately trying to burst out of the armor module. Rushing in on an intercept Wolverine slashed at him snarling and growling as Ghost dodged his claws and turned to keep the beast man off his back.

"Ghost I ain't going to let you get away with whatever your doing here." Wolverine snarled.

"Interesting, I wondered if you had been affected, listen I have a cure but I need you to leave me alone so I can save you from…" the wall behind the smoking HAMMER agent collapsed and Janissary appeared flanked by the other hunters. "…that."

"Intruders." Victoria snarled, "Kill them and add them to the fire." she commanded as she ran on all fours at Janissary who calmly pressed a button on his gauntlet. As Victoria closed the suit fired a length of cable wrapping the feral former Deputy Director of HAMMER tight. The others just glowered at Janissary before howling in unison before charging into the fray not bothering to collect the weapons scattered around the fire. Ghost say James in the thick of the action battling Airborne as the others dodged their attackers blows before savagely replying with a ferocity that they didn't expect. Covertly Ghost reached James only to be blasted with a high velocity gunk of acid as Carr advanced his face bruised and beaten.

"They may be hopped up on whatever, but you are easy prey." he sneered levelling his Alchemy Gun at Ghost. "Now tell me where is the bitch who's been calling herself Chemistro?"

"Dead I think." Ghost answered eyeing Carr's Alchemy Gun, "I'll tell you where her corpse is if you answer a question about science." he replied.

"Where is she?" Carr asked his voice getting more angry as Janissary threw an Anti-Grav Disc at Geode sending her flying away.

"She died on the Helicarrier," Ghost replied, "Now I want to know is what happens when this," he said producing the Symbiote fragment, "and this," he continued, his armor releasing an orange fluid, "combine?" he finished as Wolverine leapt at Carr from behind, the mercenaries' pistol knocked away as he blocked his face with his hands.

"Bet Tate never thought of this as a delivery system." Ghost mused picking up the Alchemy Gun and slotting the ingredients into the armoured tank that was connected. Straining he lifted the weapon system and fired a round of wild shots before exhausting himself. Looking around the room he saw that the only target he had hit was Daken who was in the process of restraining Toxin as Natasha was blasted away by Airborne who stood sentinel over the mutant as he attempted to gut the Symbiote.

"There has to be a better way." Ghost mused as Carr kicked off Wolverine and headed for Ghost. "Here you go." Ghost said quickly as he spotted Chemistro advancing on him, "No hard feelings."

"First you and then Williams," Carr growled, "Nobody takes my name and touches my equipment and live to tell about it. Your going to be nothing but slag and skin particles when I'm done with you." he added firing a shot at Ghost who quickly dodged and watched as the blast hit Natasha as she got to her feet only to be quickly felled by a punch from Janissary.

"Why the hell didn't that work?" Carr yelled firing a quick flurry of shots, all of which impacted with the Task Force HAMMER agents.

"You cured them." Ghost replied, "You're a hero." he told Carr as he shocked him unconscious and squeezed a piece of oozing fluid into his hand."

"Well looks like everybody who was after us is here." Victoria sneered as Wolverine cut her free, "You have one chance surrender and tell us who Nike is or face the consequences." she told them as James powered up his armor.

"I don't think so Cornel Rhodes." Janissary sneered, "War Machine - Anti Personnel Mk 7 Armor systems offline." he commanded as seconds later James's armor beeped and deactivated leaving him immobilized.

"It's still five against three." Victoria yelled, "James and Geode may be immobilized but you lost a man too." she commanded indicating Chemistro who lay drooling on the floor. "You have no chance just leave before anyone else gets hurt." she suddenly started choking as did the rest of Task Force HAMMER.

"I figured that you might beat us." Janissary told Victoria as she fell to her knees, "That's why I came up with a contingency plan." he added as the Sandman erupted from the mouths of the team. "This isn't a rescue it's your execution." he sneered.

* * *

><p><strong>Heli-Carrier Debris, HAMMER Base Camp - 13:52PM, 28th August<strong>

Tate crawled out of the debris, hoping that the quick set calcium that she had used to heal her leg would hold up to close combat. Looking up at the sky she saw lightning clash as Bullseye clashed with members of the Initiative and the remainder of the Dark Avengers. Coughing she crawled up to one of the Heli-Carrier's massive rotors now lop-sided and buckled before swinging down to the remains of the camp, where the few surviving tanks and AA Vehicles fired up at the combatants while HAMMER agents cowered behind blast shield, their weapons flung down. Hurrying into the communications tent Tate fiddled with the radio equipment before giving it a thump angrily cursing as it failed to work.

"You," she called as a woman, her armor emblazoned with a red-cross of a medic attempted to extract the broken form of an almost bifurcated agent. "Come here." she ordered.

"What is it Maam?" the Medic asked as Tate walked over to her. "Can't you see I'm busy."

"I can," Tate said smiling, "And your doing a fine job, I just need to know if you have a working radio, or at the very least a flare gun."

"Sorry Maam, nobody is coming the government has pulled out most of the National Guard and Army, Osborne is being replaced as soon as they find someone who's willing to take on this mess."

"Okay then I need transport to get to Asgard" Tate announced as she picked up a set of plastic beakers before bleeding into them, "My team mates are walking suicide agents, I have a solution that should keep them from exploding."

"Sorry but all transports have been destroyed." the Medic answered, "There is a rally point held by the Taskmaster but they have no way to get people out of the area."

"Thanks, I'll see if I can get some help from there." Tate replied, "Oh and one more thing, your holding that scalpel wrong."

"What," the Medic asked.

"Your holding it wrong." Tate announced as a clash of Thunder incinerated a S90 Battle Tank just outside the tent, the blast causing the canvas roof to smoke. "Give it here." she commanded taking the scalpel. "You hold it like this." she told the medic as she slammed the knife into the HAMMER agent's cheek.


	14. Dead Woman Planing

"We can take these idiots." Victoria sneered as the assassins advanced. "Ghost get James back on-line." she commanded. Ghost responded by diving at James only to be intercepted by a wall of sand knocking him back.

"Rhodes, you'll get yours for what you and the lying HYDRA Agent did to me in Botswana." Sandman growled, his voice whistling around the hall. "As for you, you're just a bug waiting to be squashed."

"He your one to talk," Wolverine replied slashing at the sand-giant's exposed back only to be tackled by Daken. "What are you doing here?" he growled "Don't you have something disgusting to do for Osborne."

"I'm on hiatus." Daken replied stabbing his bone claws into his father's chest as Toxin dodged several high speed Gattling Gun projectiles, the bullets carving out chunks of the chamber's walls. "Besides I'm not in this for the money, I'm just here for revenge."

"Vengeance this." Wolverine replied kicking Daken up, the strike leading into a rising slash cutting through his son's genitals and left elbow. "Come on son you can do better then this."

"I can," Daken roared extending his bone claws even further out. "Victoria my love, go run harry-karri into Janissary's line of fire and be all suicidal and shit."

"Okay," Victoria said weakly as Janissary fired a round of incendiary grenades at Toxin as Airborne chased him round the ceiling. Quickly she threw down the pair of javelins she was carrying before running straight at Janissary.

"Now father do something heroic, go rescue little Ms. Super Attorney." Daken growled. Wolverine snarled and ran on an intercept course as Janissary's armor activate a module that popped out of his suit. As Wolverine intercepted Janissary fired and a bolt of energy impacted on his body causing him to spark and smoke. "When will you learn father, heroics are antiquated, Osborne is the future and when he least expects it he'll find my claws in his gut." Daken towered over the unconscious Wolverine as Victoria struggled to free herself from under his body. As Daken stabbed through his father's upper thorax and into Victoria's leg she smashed him in the face sending the mutant reeling a few steps back.

"You stupid dyke." Daken snarled, "God knows I have wanted to do this ever since Osborne introduced you to me."

"The feeling's mutual." Victoria replied as she dodged Daken's slashes landing body blows ever time she moved to evade his blows. With each blow she felt a sense of dark satisfaction, she was enjoying this fight more then she should. Looking into Daken's eyes she saw an emotion that he had never shown before, he was feeling fear and she was enjoying it, the more frightened he got the more powerful she became until with a quick punch to the face the Dark Avenger went smashing into the wall before being buried by half a ton of rubble. Victoria let out a cackle, a sound more terrifying then the recorded laughter of the Green Goblin.

"Forget this the money isn't worth it." Janissary yelled as he turned tail and ran as Airborne opened fire on Victoria who quickly moved out of range as Toxin swung in slamming her to the floor.

"Light's out," he hissed as he shattered the armour's face-plate and knocking the mercenary out. "Is that all of them?" he asked only to be replied by a massive wall of sand slamming the Task Force HAMMER members.

"What the hell are you freak?" he asked Victoria as she attempted to crawl out of the torrent of sand that was pinning her to the wall.

"A nightmare." Victoria cackled as she saw Ghost float up to the comatose Geode before the villain removed the disc embedded on her chest dropping her to the floor, "Think of me as Norman Osborne with a bad attitude." she said grinning to reveal sharpened fang like canines.

"But she's not the one you should worry about." Geode said as she got to her feet, "Time for you to leave." she told the Sandman before he slammed a massive hammer shaped fist into her, although the effect was mooted as the sand melted away. Pressing the advantage Geode dived through the villain and turned to see his form shrinking down to man size before hardening into flesh and blood.

"What the hell?" he swore before Geode smashed in the face causing his form to collapse into dust as Ghost fiddled around with James armor causing the suit to reactivate.

"I'm with Sandman what the hell?" James asked

"That can wait." Geode announced, "Don't we have something to do?" she asked.

"Quiet I'm picking up vibrations," James said, "From over their."

"Toxin check it out, Natasha cover him." Victoria commanded as she purposely kicked Chemistro's unconscious form, "We'll tell HAMMER that there are two idiots for them to pick up as soon as we get clear of this pile of stone."

"Norman Osborne with Attitude?" Ghost asked, "It's clear that you some kind of elfin hybrid, not a goblin."

"It's the best I could come up with." Victoria remarked as Toxin and the Black Widow returned with a set of test-tubes in a rack, "Tate sent us some refreshments." Toxin hissed, "It's a enzyme to denature the poison Osborne put in our bodies."

"There's more, while we were behaving like animals, Osborne has been deposed by Songbird. She's acting Director until somebody goes for the position." Natasha announced, "Tate's dead," she added, "she committed suicide so that SHIELD could retrieve Mjolnir."

"You mean," Victoria started, "That bitch."

"She died being a hero." James replied, "You can't hold that against her."

"Songbird got my job." Victoria screeched, "I was deputy director of HAMMER, that should be my position not some dead Thunderbolt with stupid hair."

"Victoria calm down, we're off the hook." Geode purred, "Hell we're free, sod Osborne and his mission." she added drinking the chemical mixture, "I'm out of here."

"Your not going anywhere, neither are you Ghost." James yelled as the later tried to slink off, "We have our orders, that tower dies now."

"And what so we can get a nice shiny medal from the Usurper." Victoria sneered, "Let her send her own Spec Ops team in to deal with it."

"You know she's only got the job temporarily." Natasha told her, "Not that I'm supporting this, but you still could get the job when she steps down, she's how would you say it a custodian."

"She's probably prefer the term Steward." James added, "And think how well Victoria Hand, Saviour of SHIELD sounds."

"Yes that sounds good." Victoria sneered, "And I have an idea on how to destroy it."

Twenty Minutes later Task Force HAMMER arrived at the base of the tower, battered and bruised. They had seen few enemies but the terrain was terrible, Asgard had withstood four days of almost constant shelling and had suffered internally for arising Norman Osborne's wrath. The Tower itself had been struck but not enough damage had been done to cause it to lose power, although hopefully that was about to change.

"Geode if you concentrate you should be able to reduce the tower's foundations to dust." Victoria explained, "If the others keep watch you should be fine, first we need to destroy the crystals that focus the energy." she told her team mates, "Carr's Alchemy Pistol should have enough power to do the job." she added, "just give me five minutes." she finished as she scuttled spider like up the shaft.

"That's bull." Natasha announced, "She isn't coming back for us, luckily Ghost's manipulating of the equipment caused Carr's equipment to have a unique isotope signature we should be able to track her wherever she goes."

"So I should just level this thing now?" Geode asked, "Because it's been ages since I had a good shake down."

"Go for it." Natasha replied.

Victoria removed the first crystal and stuffed it into her bra, she was glad that the men on the team were idiots. Ghost was too paranoid to realize, Logan was generally uninterested, James was to focused on Potts to say anything and while Patrick Mulligan may notice Toxin was only interested in his host's anatomy not anyone else's. As for the women well she could blame the breast expansion on mutation from her new Dark Elf physiology. With a second crystal stuffed into her chest Victoria believed she had what she needed when the tower shook. "Damm you Geode," she cursed, "As soon as I'm in charge I'm going to have you put in a box and cast adrift in space."

If Geode heard or not was moot, the tower continued to shake and Victoria grabbed a repelling set from a now toughly dead HAMMER Agent Thrall and busted out the window and down along the crumbling surface towards the base of Asgard. "Geode, you're on my list, your all on my list she cackled as she passed the base of the tower as it collapsed and crumbled. "I will crush all of you," she mumbled as she ran out of cable and smashed into a chamber, "So says Director Hand. You," she called to the hooded figure in the chamber, "Your on my list simply because I think your creepy."

"The Heart of an Enemy." the figure replied, "The final ingredient."

"My heart is my own" Victoria sneered as she leapt towards the Hood only to be shocked by a bolt of lightning as the demon crime lord walked towards her. "Now for your heart." she whispered drilling her fingers into Victoria's chest before plucking out the beating muscle and throwing it down onto the carved circle on the floor.

"I'm sorry." Victoria moaned, "I failed." she added as she was discarded as another figure plucked the crystals from her breasts.

"Crystals of Servitude, these are powerful magical items." the second figure replied, "They will help amplify the spell to it's maximum effectiveness."

* * *

><p><strong>Spider Man's Restoration Chamber, 30 minutes later<strong>

Natasha rested Victoria's dead corpse on the bench as James stood sentinel on the chamber's balcony watching for any sign of rescue. They had briefly got through to the new director and told her of their situation but nobody really believed that they were going to be rescued.

"This is strange." Ghost remarked, "I'm picking up unknown technology on this body."

"Where?" Natasha asked as she glanced at Ghost who attempted to flip the dead woman's body. "Here let me." she added as she moved the corpse with ease. Ghost bent down and put his hand through Victoria's armor to remove a small metal disc.

"Controller Disc?" Wolverine growled as he walked past, "What was she doing with one of those."

"It is interesting." Ghost replied, "With it maybe I can…" Wolverine snatched the disc away, "Oh no you stinking terrorist, you don't get your hands on stuff like this."

"Still the question is who would be controlling her, a simple look at the design suggests that this disc is more then a synaptic-override device. Well see for yourself." Ghost announced as Victoria's body shimmered her features changing, her hair becoming blonde although she still retained some sylvan features it was clear that this was a different women.

"Who is she?" Toxin asked.

"We can find out later look." James announced as thundering over the horizon a V22 Osprey flashed its wings and headed for the lower sections of Asgard. "Looks like we're getting out of here."

"But where are we going?" Natasha replied, "Back to servitude or freedom." she added as the Osprey landed and armed marines filed out the rear and waved for the Task Force HAMMER members to drop their weapons and board the VTOL.


	15. Epilouge: Behind the Curtains

For the next couple of days the members of Task Force HAMMER were confined to the former HYDRA base that had been their headquarters under Osborne's Dark Reign. That said the new director has been lenient and while they were indeed prisoners of war SHIELD was working hard to rectify this new change in status. The main problem was that in a last act of spite Norman Osborne had published the list of all combatants involved in the Second Battle of Asgard and while a lot of people deserved everything they got under the new administration there were a fair amount of people who had been blackmailed or even physically forced into working for HAMMER. One liberty that Natasha and her team had was that Songbird had approved their request to attend Tate's funeral, albeit under armed guards.

"Ghost are you ready?" Natasha called as she flattened the long black dress she was wearing down.

"He's not coming." Geode replied as she changed her usual uniform from the crystal studded clothing to a black suit and white blouse. "Says he's going to honour Tate in his own way. Something about being on the cusp of brilliance."

"In other words he doesn't do funerals." Pat told her as the Symbiote morphed into a suit. Toxin had been cleared to go with the rest of the team to the funeral as long as he behaved himself.

"Are you really going to wear that?" Wolverine snarled as James walked in clad in his War Machine Armor.

"You seem to forget something, Nike is still out there and we are still marked men and women." James replied, "Listen the service is in thirty minutes we are just going to leave Ghost here." he added as the SHIELD escort got ready to take the Task Force HAMMER members to the cemetery. Natasha knew it was a hollow gesture after the suicide attack Tate had pulled off she could fit in a jam-jar, still it was nice to think that SHIELD cared enough to buy a coffin. Closing the door behind her Natasha sighed Ghost would have to simply just have to miss the chance to say goodbye.

Ghost slammed his intangible fist through his conspiracy board, he had removed all the former clippings and had covered the surface with everything he knew about Nike. Breathing heavily he typed into the computer looking for information about the mission that Tate had gone on in New Orleans maybe go to the source and see what scurried out. Halfway through the testimony of Chen Lu the Radioactive Man he found something; Chen had noted that Nike's relationship with Cygnus was interesting. He had claimed that Nike's behaviour towards Cygnus had been at best improper at worst illegal. Testimonies from Songbird and the Rhino collaborated this and stated that Cygnus had been raped by Nike. Ultimately it had been dropped because Tate had been unwilling to testify.

Behind him the computer beeped and brought up a pop-up message advertising a jamboree held by the local scout troop. "Tate why did you have to disable my fire walls." he cursed, "Wait a second." he said narrowing his eyes behind his mask. "Of course I was an idiot." Quickly he wrote a series of numbers onto a piece of paper. "They used a code so simple it was genius. If every number relates to the corresponding letter in the alphabet. That way 22-9-3-20-18-9-1-2-5-20-18-1-25-5-28 becomes," behind him something clicked. "So you came to do the job yourself." Ghost stated, "Wondered if you would Nike."

"You know what they say," Nike replied as she pulled the trigger sending a bullet into Ghost's brain, "If you want a job done right blow up the funeral." she sneered before kicking Ghost's body off the chair he had landed on before calmly walking out of the locked down HYDRA base.

* * *

><p><strong>Trinity Church Cemetery, New York - 16:22PM, 4th September<strong>

"Got it boss." Redback purred as she sat in the row behind War Machine as the jute coffin was wheeled out by the funeral director. "Let's get ready to rumble." she hissed as she squeezed the trigger in her hand sending the coffin exploding shattering the front row of the audience with razor sharp nails. As the dust cleared Redback examined her work and smiled, Task Force HAMMER wasn't dead but their injuries were fatal.

"Sorry guys," Redback said as she watched Natasha attempt to stand up despite the many wounds she was bleeding out. "Who knew that I would have to kill my team mates at my own funeral." she added throwing the trigger down as she walked over to the figure standing by the gates, "It's done now tell me where my son is." she asked.

"Tate my loyal servant. The truth is I only wanted you dead, what you have to say is to damaging for the head of SHIELD." Nike told her, "Or it would be if that harpy Gold didn't get their first. Enjoy your future Tate I see a lot of orange in your future." Nike replied pressing a trigger that sent an electric shock through the assassin's body. "Oh and don't worry about your son, Hera paid me more then you could ever imagine to have such a powerful manufacturing complex such as Matthew. I believe that that's what I promised you after you forced Redback out of the Helicopter"

Tate didn't reply and Nike turned and ran as sirens could be heard on the horizon, there was much to prepare. In the end it mattered little if Tate died in prison or survived to brag she was now a terrorist nobody would listen to here. She smiled in a matter of weeks she would be sitting at the head of SHIELD and the world would be as it should.


End file.
